The End of Every Story
by Cat In My Fridge
Summary: Someone - dark, evil, incredibly sexy - is blackmailing you. "Do as I say, or I ruin your life," is what he says. Worse yet, you know that he is also able to see your innermost desires - and that he can see himself there. What would you do? Seifer x Roxas
1. The Space between Dimensions

**Author's Notes:**

I started this fic in 2006 and revised and finished it in September 2008. By the time you're reading this, this thing is finally done at nearly around 46,000 words spread over roughly 90 pages. It's the longest story I've ever written and I'm quite proud of it.

The idea for this fic came to me while playing the prologue of KH 2 in early 2006 – and, for the longest of times, the idea wouldn't leave me until I realised it _had _to be written down or else it would continue to haunt me for all eternity.

Other than the beginning of KH II, the inspiration for this fic was a certain book by Hermann Hesse. The main themes of this fic are growing up, realizing your potential and finding out who you truly are.

**Pairing:** Seifer x Roxas. And proud.

**Disclaimer**: I will only say it once: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

**Timeline:** It was originally set pre-KH 2, but since I decided to end it in a way that is irreconcilable with canon, it is now an AU story.

**Rating:** M for the whole story; nothing graphic though.

**Warnings:** some angst, yaoi (boy love), underage drinking... long-windedness... ;;

**Length:** 8 chapters, possible sequel. Complete.

**Revisions as of September 2008 for Chapter 1**: Spelling, grammar, sharpening of prose (cut of adverbs, adjectives and other redundant words). Added two lines of dialogue plus one mention of Roxas's past near the end.

--

_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 1: The Space between Dimensions**_

_**Revised September 2008**_

--

Of course, Roxas was, in a way, scared of Seifer.

Though admittedly he wasn't anyone's prime candidate in a run for Superbrain, Roxas was sure that his memory wasn't playing tricks on him when it told him that Seifer and his friends had always been _different_. Not just any kind of different – after all, as Roxas had had to learn since grade school, everyone was _unique_, weren't they? - Seifer and friends were a huge, gaping, _unreachable _kind of different. Orcs and Elves, Fire and Ice. The space between dimensions.

The rules had always been simple, as easy to understand as the folk songs he used to have to sing in elementary school. There was him, him and Hayner, Olette and Pence. Then there was Seifer, Seifer and Fuu and Rai. Two groups opposite of one another - sometimes helping each other when the need arose, sometimes fighting for dominance when said need was absent and had made way for boredom; mostly, though, what they did was do their eagerest to stay out of each other's path. Steer clear of one another to indulge in mean-spirited snickering and bad-mouthing behind the other group's back.

Roxas always _had_ noticed the anger in Hayner's faithful brown eyes whenever the name Seifer had spilled out of his lips. _He's evil,_ Hayner would sometimes say. _He's evil, he has no morals. He drinks, Roxas. Maybe he even smokes. He's not to be trusted._

And, Roxas knew all that. How could he not…? One look at Seifer, one quick glance to take in the way he carried himself was enough it took to be in the picture about this boy's apparent need not to follow any orders or norms whatsoever. There was that playful, yet so terribly arrogant smile around his lips; the way he oh-so-confidently showed off his stomach, for the world to see how his taut muscles contracted underneath that honey-coloured skin every time he moved his upper body; the way his voice was already like a man's, belying his tender age. The way he would sleep at school, his head nuzzled between his arms, snoring away quietly as the teachers droned on in their drawling voices, not caring that Seifer was so blatantly ignoring their work. Perhaps they were even eager not to wake up the one student they feared the most – for a reputation of being _problematic_, Seifer certainly had.

Nobody knew _quite_ how it happened – or in any case, nobody had lived to tell. Rumours were that ever since the tall blonde boy had been a small child, he'd always strived to be different, always eager to attach a bad reputation to his name and by all accounts, he had more than succeeded. T

It was almost visible how the respect or resentment in people's heart intensified every time the blonde's smug laughter echoed through the school halls. Battle cries could be heard when he, Fuu and Rai would bully a child in deserted school hallways or would roam the streets at night, bawling old songs and smelling of alcohol and cigarettes and all things evil and unclean to Roxas.

Roxas would sometimes look over at Seifer at school, would let his eyes linger over his baggy pants and his revealing clothing, wondering time and time again how one managed to be so _rebellious_. Sometimes, his gaze would get stuck at Seifer's abdominal muscles, would linger at the way they protruded around the soft flesh of his belly button whenever Seifer was bent forward to nestle his head between his strong arms. Sometimes, he would even look up to take in Seifer's shoulders, which would sometimes be visible whenever the blonde man hadn't even bothered to wear a jacket; his bones would be long, clear-cut lines, the only thing skinny and lean about the other's body, and the day Roxas would ever admit to tracing Seifer's lines with that much interest would be the day they found his eviscerated corpse shoven half-way down the school toilet.

Still, it would pique his interest: Seifer's sense of fashion, the certain way he carried his body that bordered on _vanity_ was definitely something unique to Seifer and Seifer alone. Roxas knew of no other bullies who bothered to walk that fine line between femininity and masculinity, who tried to balance their physical power with their real or imagined beauty.

Then, Roxas would be disturbed by this display of apparent superiority. He wouldn't be able to understand why he was paying so much attention to someone who was, for all intents and purpose, _evil_. He would wrinkle his nose, and look away as soon as he caught Fujin's predatory glare. Her gaze was often resting on the sandy-haired youth's face as though weighing her opinions, possibly, Roxas figured, deciding whether he was a useless bug she and Seifer were free to crush or whether he was a useless bug not even worth the trouble of crushing.

It was always then that Roxas would turn his gaze, his cheeks colouring a gentle hint of rosé, to find the slender body of Olette to focus on. She was sitting right in front of him, her brunette hair trailing down her narrow, hunched-over back, ending just above her usually cutely clothed butt. She was always scribbling her notes in a hurry, the only one out of Roxas's circle of friends who showed interest in her academic success. Soon, though, Roxas would get bored looking at Olette, but would be too scared to have his gaze slip back to Seifer and his friends. So, he would sit there, drawing in his shoulder blades as narrowly as they would go and would do the _one_ thing he was even remotely good at other than skateboarding.

Waiting.

So wait, he would. And wait. _Wait_, until the end of the day was announced with the eardrum-piercing howling of the bell in this horrible school, and he would, with one chest-heaving sigh of relief, get up to gather his books, looking forward to a day of roaming the streets with Hayner, Pence and Olette, laughing about the most irrelevant things they could come up with and letting his friends take him, the shyest of them all, along to jump head-first into possible dangers. In short, a day like any other.

Little did Roxas know that this day would, in fact, be _anything_ like any other just then. The realization, though, was quick to hit him as he felt a hand on his shoulder which he first mistook to be Hayner's – until, that is, his eyes fell upon said blonde's youthful face which was regarding him from _the other end of the classroom_.

Pence was nowhere to be seen, but that hand was far too strong to belong to soft, gentle Pence, whose handshake was little more forceful than the beating of a dragonfly's wings. Olette was still busy with her notes, but there was no way the hand could possibly belong to her – it was far too large to be a part of the girl's petite body.

"Hey, Roxas," a smooth, deep voice said behind him and Roxas drew in his breath sharply, his heart exploding in his chest as it sent a tsunami of blood right to his head, crushing the unconnected thoughts which were racing through his mind. The voice was deep, manly... and predatory. Doubtlessly, it was Seifer's.

Roxas turned around, slowly at first, but then with a certain defiance, his eyes glittering at the much taller, much more muscular boy as soon as he was facing the other completely. Skeptical was the smirk that was playing around his thin lips; his expressive green eyes stared down at him in their raw, naked, stirring way. Fuu and Rai were framing their leader on either side, but Roxas paid them no mind, too busy was he staring at Seifer. He felt dread rise up inside him, taking up corporeal form and clogging his throat.

Seifer hadn't really talked to him in a long time.

Of course, Seifer had more than once barked at their group, but when he had, he had always addressed them as either one entity or had focused on Hayner. For a long time, Seifer hadn't decided to turn to Roxas as an individual. The sandy-haired boy hadn't even known Seifer still remembered his name…

When they had both been smaller, there had once been a time when Seifer had taken a special interest in Roxas. They had perhaps been twelve or thirteen and one day after school, Seifer had stopped Roxas on his way out of the classroom. Books neatly clenched under his arms, chatting with Hayner and Olette about an upcoming concert, Roxas had felt like he'd just been sentenced to death as Seifer had jogged up to him, hurling one of his massive grins into the other's face to ask about whether Roxas wanted to hang out after school. The startled youth, paling until the few light-brown freckles on his face had stood out on his skin like stains, had refused with a jerky shake of his head, had tugged Olette on her arm and had practically fled the school.

Roxas would often wonder just what exactly Seifer had wanted to tell him back then. In fact, it was still haunting him to such a degree that Roxas would often be awake at night to muse about this question, that the question would surface out of the depths of his mind like a corpse floating up from the depths of the sea when eating ice cream with his friends or even when he was skateboarding. As far as Roxas knew, Seifer had never done a similar thing to anyone before, had never spontaneously walked up to anyone to offer spending the afternoon with him or her. It was a mystery to Roxas - no matter how he twisted and turned the situation, no matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn't figure it out. He had thought he would never find out, since Seifer hadn't bothered to talk to Roxas individually ever again.

_Until now._

"I saw you staring at me last period," Seifer said, smirking down at Roxas. The smaller boy avoided Seifer's eyes and instead let his eyes dart over the remaining people in the classroom, all of whom were watching the both of them out of faces that made no effort to hide their horror: Olette, lips trembling, eyes wide; Hayner, eyebrows were laced together in a venomous frown, body tense in tightly-wired tension. But he could no longer spot the teacher; it seemed like she had fled the classroom at the sound of the bell much like any sane student would have.

"Hey chicken-wuss," Seifer snarled, "you listening to me? I said you were _staring at me_." He smirked, revealing a row of white teeth. "Saw anything interesting…?"

Roxas swallowed. "I wasn't really staring." He was trying to sound nonchalant, but failing ruefully. "Why _would_ I?"

"LIAR," Fuu sneered, making a dismissive gesture with her one of her pale arms. "NERVOUS. COWARD."

"The boy's too scared to talk, ya know?" Raijin said to Fujin, pride surfacing on his tanned face as he did so as though he had just shared a particularly well-kept gem of a secret with the albino girl. "Totally shitting his pants, yo."

Roxas's cheeks flushed a more intense colour of red just as the anger returned to his eyes with a sudden bolt. "I'm not!" he snapped, sending a hateful glare into the direction of the burly boy before daring to scan the room for his friends once again, realising with a sigh of relief that Hayner was seemingly contemplating to walk up and interrupt.

"Listen, Roxas," Seifer said suddenly as his eyes narrowed at Hayner. He bent down to Roxas, way too quickly to give the younger boy a chance to react appropriately, and Roxas felt something inside him tightening in a mix of fear and excitement as he felt Seifer's lips brush against one of his ears. His spine straightened itself at the small, yet electrifying touch; his nose couldn't help but breathe in Seifer's spicy, manly cologne, the only boy in school the smaller blonde knew of who chose such an elusive scent. His deep blue eyes widened as Seifer gently pushed his words into Roxas's defenceless auditory channel.

"Tell your friends to leave us," he said. His usually so loud voice that took great pride in its obnoxiousness had softened down to resemble a gentle, almost… _seductive_ whisper. Roxas had a hard time bending his mind around the fact he'd just mentally called this self-absorbed ass seductive, much less the fact that he opened his mouth almost automatically.

"It's fine," he whispered into the vague direction of Olette and Hayner. "Let me talk to Seifer for a second."

Hayner, whose determined expression fell at once, seemed at a temporary loss for words. "Wh..What? Are you sure, Roxas?" He narrowed his big, brown eyes at Seifer, obvious suspicion lurking in their depths. "I don't know about this…"

"Yeah," Roxas muttered, voice almost breaking. "I-I won't be long. Let's meet at the usual spot outside?"

It took Hayner a while to consider it and when he finally seemed to come to a conclusion, he gave his affirmation with a brisk nod, making it obvious to everyone in the room that he did not like this in any way. He nodded to Olette who was still standing there, rooted to her spot, her large, beautiful eyes trained on Roxas. Eventually, even she pried her eyes away from Roxas and joined Hayner on his way out of the classroom, the worried look she'd had on her face until the end imprinting itself onto Roxas's mind.

When they had left, thick silence hang itself over the scene like a ridiculously decorated curtain, really hammering home that the boy was, in fact, _alone_ with the three meanest bullies of Twilight Town. Roxas was starting to doubt his sanity as he let his eyes hover over the boy in front of him, who had crossed his arms over his broad chest and was smirking down at the sandy-haired boy in a way that spelled smugness in bold letters. _Why hadn't he brushed Seifer off like last time…? Was he __**mad**__?_

Roxas, experiencing another quick impulse of rage and defiance inside his slender teenage body, decided right then and there just _why_ exactly he hadn't told the bigger boy to piss off. The simple reason he came up with being the fact that he wasn't about to be intimated any more. Okay, so he wasn't a particularly interesting kid, had no talents to speak of, nor any interests that set him apart from the hundreds of other children bustling about in the huge, lively school of Twilight Town, but what he definitely _was not_ was some helpless girl. He'd been friends with Hayner for far too long not to be a force to be reckoned with.

Besides, he reasoned with himself, maybe he would find out now why Seifer had been interested in him once all those years ago...

So, Roxas crossed his arms in front of his chest, mimicking the way Seifer was glaring at him. He raised one blonde eyebrow. "So?"

Seifer smirked at him. That's all he did for a while while he was standing there to leer at him, his green eyes dancing merrily with amusement, giving Roxas the feeling he was making fun of him while he had no clue what he had done to deserve such open smugness. Rai and Fuu seemed to match Seifer in amusement, and Roxas was thinking that he really would like to be let in on that particular inside joke when Seifer spoke again.

"There's something we need to talk to you about." He paused. " This evening."

Roxas blinked. "Eh..?"

"STUPID," Fuu judged.

"He says he wants to meet ya, ya know!" Rai offered, grinning at Roxas in a way that reminded the smaller blonde boy of the time when he had just been adopted and moved to Twilight Town, and had watched Seifer rip the legs off a fly.

"That's right," Seifer said, and the mental replica of a squirming fly and cruel smirks evaporated, being replaced by a reality that was no less frightening. "How about we meet at 8 PM. That's a good time, don't you think?"

Roxas suddenly found himself incapable of doing anything involving movement. "I... um.."

Fuu made a sceptical noise deep down her throat, then cut the air sharply with one of her slender hands. "ROXAS BRAIN: SIZE OF PEA."

Seifer sent the silver-haired girl a look, but Roxas was unable to tell of what nature the sudden gaze had been of. In any case, the girl returned the look in her usual, nonplussed manner, not a muscle on her pretty, seemingly forever frozen in place face moving. Seifer turned his body back to face the blonde boy in front of him, and Roxas only had time to see Fuu nodding before he watched her and her dark-skinned friend leaving with both of his eyes wide open. They were leaving.. which meant... which meant that they were...

Leaving him alone. With none other than _Seifer._

"What the f--" Roxas started out of one hot impulse born from the sudden fear crashing over his head like a giant wave, but he was mercilessly interrupted by the smirking Seifer.

"Relax, Roxas. Do you think I'm going to kill you now they're gone?" He laughed once, his laughter laced with cutting cruelty. "I knew you were chicken-wuss you know, but I didn't think you'd be that terrified of me; almost disappointing, I have to say." He grinned, flashing teeth that looked so white against his honey skin. "They just left to give us some privacy."

_**Privacy? **_Roxas's thoughts echoed. What the fuck ever _for_? Roxas had never even _seen _Seifer without his loyal minions, much less had a chance to study his behaviour in such a situation. It was almost bordering on the unthinkable – Seifer without his minions, that was like... that was like a day without the sun. Like Twilight Town without noise and dirt, and without people relentlessly walking down its every inch. It was like... a day without seeing Hayner. Unthinkable.

"What for?" Roxas asked, marring his forehead with a deep frown. "You never talk to me when you don't have to."

"I never talk to you, period," Seifer replied, deadpan. Roxas's back stiffened even more as he heard the classroom's door closing, marking the exists of the two small Seifers. Roxas couldn't think of a better strategy than to narrow his eyes, trying to pour all the nervousness and utter defiance to make a fool of himself into the other's never-faltering face. It didn't really work, as Seifer didn't show a sign of being impressed by the smaller boy's brave efforts. Instead, his grin even broadened.

"Well, even though we don't talk, as you know.." Seifer continued, suddenly examining his fingernails for some odd reason, "there's something I need to discuss with you. Tonight." His gaze finally left his fingernails to steady themselves on Roxas once again. "And, before you ask: no... it can't be postponed. It's tonight."

"What do you want to talk to me about?" Roxas asked, his cerulean eyes narrowing. "Why can't Hayner and the others be there with me?"

"Because," Seifer said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, "it's about you. You, as in, _you_, the boy with the big blue eyes and the loose pants who's good at skateboarding. Not you as in you, Hayner, Nerd Chick and Chubby." He stepped a little closer to Roxas. "You _do_ understand that, right?"

Once again, that smell. That smell emitted by Seifer's skin which was infesting his brain with its minatory scent. It made Roxas's small nose wrinkle in reluctance.

"Okay," Roxas finally found the voice to answer, "but what _is_ it? That we need to discuss?" For the first time, the smaller boy openly met Seifer's gaze, plunging himself right into their swirling green depths which were so completely dominating the other's thin, angular face. It made Roxas feel strange, to say the least – though he'd had the mixed pleasure to witness the effect of Seifer's eyes almost daily, it had been a while since they had been so mercilessly, so unmistakably trained on _him_ and no one else. _Him and no one else. _Roxas paused his train of thought. How strange that statement sounded – almost wrong in and of itself.

"What it is, you'll find out soon enough. Or are you too chicken to come...?"

Roxas bit down on his lip. "You _know_ I'm not."

"Oh yeah," Seifer said sarcastically, "you were lucky to be born so brave – unlike me, who was born a big fat liar."

"You're just a big bucket of funny, aren't you, Almasy?" Roxas muttered.

Seifer laughed; it cut right through Roxas.

"Well then," Seifer said when he had composed himself, his whole face lightening up in triumph, "how does 8 PM in front of the entrance to the woods sound to you?"

Maybe Roxas was trying to follow this strange path to independence he'd read about in one of those novels he'd found in his house weeks ago, underneath that stash of his his mother Lulu's old clothes. Maybe, though, the real scapegoat was the curiosity which had steadily been building up inside Roxas, periodically winning the upper hand over the fear. It was also possible that Roxas had just simply gone bonkers.

In any case, Roxas nodded. He saw Seifer grinning, then he could feel Seifer's hand on his shoulder to congratulate him.

And Roxas, as he stared up at Seifer's face, knew he was doomed. The feeling started in his throat, and then made its way down to his stomach where it started to settle and hatch its eggs.

As though in a stupor, he watched Seifer packing his school stuff, throwing his bag over one shoulder in his casual way and waving at Roxas with one of his broad hands and a playful little wink. Then, he walked to the door, turning around the second his hand touched the handle to call, "don't forget the appointment, Roxas! You agreed to it, remember?"

Giving the other one last grin, he opened the door and let it fall shut behind in a sound that reverberated in Roxas's ears. Then, he was gone.

_What exactly have I just agreed to?_ Roxas mind thought as his hands clenched into tight fists. He got no answer from the depths of his brain. There was nothing, nothing but the static of a non-working TV set.

**- tbc**


	2. The illusion called life

**Author's Notes: **Personally I feel that the 1st, 7th and 8th chapters are by far the best of the story and that the middle part is the weakest link. I cleaned up much of what was wrong with the middle part, but, in my opinion, they remain sub-par. I hope you will wade through it regardless and finish the story. :-)

**Warnings:**Swearing in this chapter.

**Revision September 2008 Changes for Chapter 2**: Stylistic changes (cut of adjectives, adverbs, sharpening of prose), added mentions of Roxas's mother, added a few extra lines of dialogue.

* * *

**+ The End of Every Story +  
**

**+ Chapter 2: The Illusion called Life +  
**

**Revised September 2008**

* * *

When Roxas opened the door and stepped out into the busy hallway of their school, he was momentarily snapped out of his musings when his gaze fell upon the serious eyes of Odette. She was regarding him with her eyebrows nearly joined over her brilliant eyes and her skinny arms neatly folded over her body. The way she was carrying herself didn't exactly predict she would burst into a song of praise for him within the current century.

"Roxas..." Olette promptly started, raising one eyebrow in a sceptical way as she muttered his name, "what exactly _was_ that?"

"What... do you mean?" Roxas tried weakly.

"You know full well just _what_ I mean!" Olette said, her eyes glittering with the emotions battling within and her tiny body quivering like leaves in an autumn storm. She was regarding her best friend with a expression that laid bare just how concerned she was. "Roxas..." she started again, her voice having dropped to a soft, familiar whisper, the kind she reserved for him and Hayner whenever she felt her feminine touch was needed to fix things. "Did Seifer... threaten you?"

Roxas's lips hardened into a tight, chiselled line, and his shoulders brushed against the petite girl's as he rushed past her, heading down the hallway leading to the school's exit. "No, not at all. He... he did no --"

"Why are you running away from me?" Olette interrupted him as her body emerged to his right, almost tripping over her shorter legs as she was trying to keep up with him – as cute and childish her awkward steps were, though, the expression on her face was anything but. Roxas could see the worry for him – plain, pure, innocent _worry_ for him and his well-being – edged tightly into her pretty features. When Olette's fingers wrapped themselves around his arm, gently ordering him to slow down and to surrender his gaze to hers, Roxas felt a sudden burst of affection for his friend.

"Roxas..." Olette said, her voice having taken on a pleading tone. "Hayner was so upset with you, he left without waiting... I could tell he was really, really mad about this... but... I want to know. What _was _that, Roxas?"

_Because... it's about you. You, as in, __**you**__, the boy with the big blue eyes and the loose pants who's good at skateboarding. Not you as in you, Hayner, Ner__d Chick__ and Chubby, S_eifer said from somewhere deep inside Roxas. His voice captures and imprisoned the feeling of affection he felt for the girl.

_**You, **_his voice echoed.

"Did he ask you to hang out with him _again_?" Olette inquired, one auburn eyebrow cocked above her misty emerald eyes. "Did you, by any chance, accept this time? Come on, Roxas, since when can't you tell me things? Friends forever, that's what we said we were. Don't you remember?"

_**You.**_

"Roxas?!"

His eyes widened as a sudden bolt of emotion raced through his veins. They infested his brain with a sudden hot impulse entirely foreign to Roxas, causing him to yank his arm out of the girl's grip with such vehemence that it spelled surprise paired with the first signs of fear onto the girl's face.

Turning to rush past his friend once again, he snapped, "let me go, Olette."

The girl's eyes widened, and she attempted to grab his arm yet again. He pushed it aside with an annoyed groan, flexing his eyes hard upon the girl's as he uttered the next words, "this is about me, Olette. _**Me.**_ You _get_ that?" His voice had risen to a volume almost unheard of from the usually so introverted boy. The girl's almost scared flinching caused him to lower his voice, but the next words were laced with a darkness that was second only Seifer's. "What business is it of yours what exactly I had to discuss with a fellow classmate?"

With that, he turned around, and burst out of the school building, forcing everything around him – noises, people, even friends - to crash down like a puzzle, their little pieces falling to the ground and leaving non-descriptive nothingness behind.

Eventually, his lungs started to burn, and a searing pain born in his ankles had risen up to take possession of his calves and thighs. With his chest heaving desperately, his head connected with the rough surface of a tree as he was trying to collect himself. Showers raced down his spine as wind hit his now so vulnerable body, as the sweat on his body was dried in icy chills and as the realization of what he had just done finally, finally sank its cruel claws into his consciousness.

Had he.. had he just told off his second best friend in the world? Had he lost his mind? What was he without his friends? What was he, that little boy without any special talents, without any dreams to separate him from the thousands of other little boys in his school, what was _he _without the friends that had so loyally been supporting him ever since he had been adopted and thrown into their midst? Yeah... what _was_ he, really...?

"You're in deep shit, Roxas, deep shit, that's what you are," he said to himself as he was staring at the surface of the tree, his teeth resting against the knuckle of his right hand. "Deep shit indeed."

--

Time had passed slowly.

It had passed so slowly, in fact, that whenever Roxas had stolen a glance at his watch, frustration had once again settled in his stomach. Boredom and apathy had stood in a stark contrast to his heart thundering away in barely withheld anticipation, trying to send his brain into confused upheaval. He had done nothing much, except for sitting there, letting his eyes do a pathetic job in trying to burn a hole through the walls of his tiny bedroom. He had been unable to do skateboarding, unable to study, unable, of course, to do what he usually did in those lazy afternoons – hang out with Hayner, Olette and Pence and have a carefree afternoon full of laughter.

He had half-expected Hayner to show up that afternoon, to try to talk to him, to try to convince him much like Olette had tried – but no one had. He had avoided his mother upon coming home, only muttered that he wanted nothing to eat before he had slammed his door shut, choosing to spend his afternoon in his room where he was able to pretend that he was the only person in the whole, wide world with only the echo of his own confused thoughts to keep him company. Sweet solitude, some would have called it; unnatural encapsulation would have been the preferred choice of others. In any case, Roxas had spent his afternoon wishing for time to go by faster.

The frustration of the endless wait was still tangible even as he was hurrying towards the entrance of the woods close to the 8 o'clock that night, passing chatting people, passing Mrs. Loz who was ranting to her neighbour about tangerines, passing the merchants praising their own goods. All of them were insignificant; all of them were blissfully unaware of the doom that had settled above Roxas's head. His battling emotions were periodically speeding his steps up and slowing them down depending on which side of his conscience had managed to gain the upper hand against the wailing other side. When, at last, he thought he could make out three shapes close to the entrance, several sirens went off in his head that demanded of him to turn around, to turn around _now_ as long as he still could, but said chance was snapped away from right between his fingers.

"Hey, Roxas," Seifer called, "Over here."

He didn't reply, but his whole body built one rigid, frozen line as he walked toward the three silhouettes on shaky legs. Doom had long since settled in his innards, stubbornly dodging Roxas' tries to puke it out of his stomach. The closer he got, the clearer the picture of the three teenagers became, and it didn't take long for Roxas to be able to make out the huge smirk on the tall blonde's face, tainted black with evil into its very core.

"Hi, Roxas," Seifer greeted, "So nice you could come." His smile dropped. "Not that you had much of a choice, but hey – let's keep it cordial."

Roxas just narrowed his eyebrows, letting his eyes trail from Seifer, who was clad in his usual attire to his two minions, who were leaning against the wall casually, not even bothering to look at the newly arrived boy. Fuu was absent-mindedly chewing a gum while she was studying her hands, Raijin had crossed his arms over his impressive chest and was studying the floor as though he intended to draw it by heart.

Roxas wrinkled his nose and returned his gaze to Seifer, who was so openly staring at him with his brilliant eyes that Roxas actually _flinched_ –which, in Roxas, only awakened the desire to slap himself for being such a damn fucking _pussy._

While his cheeks coloured a gentle shade of rosé in embarrassment, a defiant pout settled onto his face. "I'm here," Roxas stated matter-of-factly. "Will you... ca... finally _tell_ me?!" Roxas had actually wanted to say "care to enlighten me?" which had sounded so good in his head – as it often was, though, what sounded good in the head was precariously difficult to actually form with one's tongue.

Seifer didn't immediately reply – instead, he continue to regard the smaller boy out of controlled, distinctly _amused_ eyes. When he finally spoke, it was softly, "why don't we go into the woods to talk? Let's sit down and discuss this in peace in there, shall we? There's a nice meadow just a few minutes away from here." He flashed Roxas a radiating smile, then turned around to nod into the direction of the woods – when Roxas turned his head to follow the other boy's notion, all he could make out in the valley of darkness was a few mighty silhouettes of trees cut sharply against the milky moon. The fresh smell of nature was wafting towards the four youths, but the unsettling feeling in Roxas' stomach only intensified as the pure smell tickled his nostrils.

Seifer then, without giving the smaller boy any warning, walked into the woods with slow strides, and his two minions, who finally shifted their gazes to meet Roxas', both pushed themselves off the wall and started to follow their leader. Roxas stood regarding them for a while, but when the two boys had already disappeared into the woods, Fuu stopped, turned around and regarded him out of her unsettling albino eye. Maybe it was just Roxas' strained nerves playing a trick on him; it seemed to Roxas like she was trying to say, _follow us or I castrate you with a flame thr__ower._

Roxas swallowed and let his feet lead him into the woods after his three enemies, feeling the coolness of the sheltered place sweep over his skin. He carefully walked a few feet behind the trio as they invaded the forest deeper. His own heartbeat was just as prominent in his ears as the singing of birds above and the soft chirping of insect to his feet. The hymn was strangely sad that day, Roxas thought – perhaps mourning for him, him who had so thoughtlessly left his friends' protective lap to aimlessly wander into his enemies' and whose sanity was at the moment an unknown case.

It didn't soothe Roxas's nerves that the three youths ahead of him seemed to know exactly where they were going; indeed, it only served to heighten the fear that was washing over him in great dark waves, a fear that finally gathered into a tsunami as they spilled into the meadow.

Calm and beautiful though it was, it sent Roxas's heart into a terrified gallop. Like a heart in the midst of the protective body of the high trees it lay, sprouting a row of bench in its centre. Nothing was there except for the bench – the bench, and, as Roxas suddenly noticed, quite a few rucksacks strewn all over one part of the area. A rucksack much like the one Rai had been carrying, Roxas suddenly noticed...

Shifting his eyes to the taller blonde in an anticipatory glare, he saw Seifer walk towards the bench and settle his weight on it with a dark smile on his face. Roxas could see those abdominal muscles hardening as the tall boy body's settled down on the wooden bench. They hardened deliciously.

Fuu did nothing; Rai however opened his rucksack with a small smile on his face and handed a bottle to Seifer, then another. _Bottles_, Roxas's mind echoed. _This isn't good._

His throat feeling unusually dry, Roxas watched as Seifer threw his head back, his delicate adam's apple popping up and down as the fluid was pressed down into his stomach. His eyes were closed in some sort of sensual concentration and Roxas had a hard time averting his own from the blonde teen. Until he, quite without warning, felt something hit his stomach in unexpected force.

Roxas' eyes searched the source of his sudden pain – they flexed upon the dark face of Rai, who was grinning at him in a creepy buddy-buddy way. What had so painfully connected with his stomach was a bottle much the same as the one Seifer was drinking. He automatically took the bottle, gripping it more tightly than was absolutely necessary. What was the most disturbing in the scene, though, wasn't the fact that he had just been given – and accepted – a bottle of unknown contents, it was that he couldn't help but let his ocean eyes trail back to where Seifer was sitting.

The blonde had a soft smirk playing around his lips, lips on which, Roxas realized with a funny jolt in the pit of his stomach, some of the liquid was still pearling. He saw Seifer nod to a spot to his side and while Roxas would have very much liked to claim otherwise, the truth was that it took Roxas a few moments, during which his heart launched into a series of frantic bolts, before he realized that he was supposed to sit down next to him.

His heart beating strongly against his ribcage as though attempting to break free of its prison, he approached Seifer and lowered himself onto the bench, questioning eyes never once ceasing to feast on the taller boy's face. Without waiting for Roxas to say or do anything, Seifer snatched the bottle from out of his hands and, with one swift motion, opened it. The bottle was back in his hands within a matter of second and Roxas finally had the time to really study what had so rudely been shoved into his hands.

It was alcohol. Of course it was.

But not just any kind of alcohol.

"What the fuck, Seifer?" Roxas hissed, his eyes narrowing as he shot the taller boy an angry glare. "I'm not drinking this. This is high-percentage!"

"What?" Seifer replied, his voice low and carrying the first traces of danger. A smirk crawled over Seifer's lips and his eyes zoomed in on Roxas; victory was illuminating them from within, like a mansion shining in festive lights. "What," Seifer repeated, "are you too pussy to drink that?"

Roxas' eyebrows narrowed in anger. "I'm not," he hissed, with all the defiance and childishness so common for a youth his age. "Of course I'm not scared," Roxas went on, "why would I --"

"Good," Seifer interrupted him. "Excellent, even. Drink, then."

Roxas lower lip was trembling and it wasn't until the smaller boy caught Seifer staring at it that he caught it between his teeth and gave it a few short, violent bites. His eyes were focused on Seifer, soft spray of freckles was stark and strong against his youthful, pale skin.

"Your freckles are the colour of wet sand," Seifer mused. "They're the same colour as your eyelashes."

There was little that Roxas put past Seifer, but he hadn't expected the bully to say something like that. "What?" Roxas asked, eyebrows narrowing.

Seifer smirked at him as he shook his head. "Nevermind."

Roxas wasn't comfortable with the realization that, as rough and mean Seifer's face was, as leering and perverted his smirk, as threatening the shadows of evil dancing in his irises, there was still a certain elegance, even... _beauty_ about his features. Beauty that, Roxas reasoned, would most likely fade and be declared a happy meal for the impending roughness of experience. People's faces always hardened with experience – Roxas had witnessed it. His mind conjured up a mental replica of his mother, of her face into which the lines had been cut with what looked like a knife, onto whose face experience had written a poem of cruelty. Oh yes, he had witnessed it all right.

He shook his head, the mental replica bursting into millions of brilliant shards, trying to gather his courage which had started to want to seep out of his pores. He forced himself to meet Seifer's viridine gaze. "Look," Roxas started, trying to ignore the tremble in his voice, "until you don't tell me why exactly I'm here... and _what _you want from me... I'm not drinking this."

At first, it seemed like Seifer was going to hit him. The taller boy's eyes narrowed in displeasure and he regarded the younger boy in a way that made it clear to Roxas that he had trespassed a line after which arousing Seifer's temper could end up being fatal. He was basically looking at Roxas in a way he looked at everybody he bullied – out of eyes that forced superiority on you, out of a face that didn't leave space for any hint of gentleness. Roxas could taste his own heart in his throat as he was staring right into the other youth's eyes, jumbled thoughts in his head screaming at him to get the _fuck_ up and run the _fuck_ away. But, to his utter surprise, Seifer's features suddenly, as though he had suddenly achieved a state of new peacefulness, softened.

"Fine," Seifer said, finally cutting the intensive eye contact between the two of them and leisurely continuing to sip on his own bottle, "do what you want, then." He snorted. "Who knew you'd be too pussy to drink... you're not half the man I thought you would be." He grinned. "But, oh well. I should have known. I should have been able to tell just by looking at you. What are you in your group exactly, the underling who jerks off Hayner in the mornings? The hired muscle to carry around Chubby when his bike has collapsed under his weight?" Evil was dancing in his eyes as he looked at the younger boy with more superiority than any teacher, any priest, heck, _anybody_ ever had. He lowered his voice. "I should have known."

Anger exploded inside Roxas, hot enough to sizzle in his veins. _How __**dare**__ this stuck-up asshole...?_

Roxas, by now, was trembling with barely suppressed anger, hurling all of his hatred and his defiance into the other's face with a glare that was bordering on manical. Oh, how he _despised_ this smug, confident bully, this guy who fought everyone and every_thing_ was so far beneath him that he was fucking floating over the ground, the guy who never showed even an ounce of respect to anyone, who would sooner be caught dead than be charitable or kind. _Well_, Roxas decided, he would not put up with this blatant show of superiority, this vomit-inducing display of having (or _thinking_ to have) the biggest cock in Twilight Town. No, he, Roxas, he wouldn't put up with that. There was no way in _hell _he would.

Without really realizing what exactly he was doing, Roxas unscrewed the bottle and kept eye contact with Seifer even as he put it to his lips to his lips and – in one moment during which his heart surged, knocking against his throat – gulped down the contents.

Roxas wanted to gag and scream and vomit all at the same time as the burning, gross alcohol tore its way into his stomach, the hotness of the poison trying to burn through his esophagus. His eyes widened with the pain and the unnatural feeling, but he was by then far too lost in his little fight with Seifer to stop drinking until he was close to suffocating and his stomach close to heaving and splashing the so bravely drunken alcohol all over the forest ground.

With a great sigh, Roxas put the bottle down. His clouded eyes immediately searched for Seifer, and a great, triumphant grin took possession of his full lips as he caught the other boy's eyes. Almost ecstatic was the feeling that sped along Roxas's spine as he took in the surprise openly displayed on Seifer's face and without Roxas broke out into loud, unabashed laughter.

Oh, how peculiar he was suddenly feeling, how there was a strange, deafening buzz in his head, how his limbs felt so heavy but yet hot and bursting with energy. His eyesight seemed to have worsened because everything had a soft edge to it and the colours had toned down as though the world was a water painting and rain has washed over it. Seifer was little more than eyes without a face. Green eyes that had toned down to a mellow forest green, so beautiful and peaceful to Roxas, were sparkling right in front of him, and Roxas wanted to reach out to them and try to pluck them like he had wanted the stars when he had been a child. But something held him something, something he could not place – perhaps he had learned throughout the years that the stars were unreachable, so instead of extending his arm in a desire doomed to fail, he was content just sitting there and admiring them from afar.

"Your eyes are the stars," Roxas breathed, then smiled, without even noticing that he was smiling. Tearing his eyes away from the floating stars amidst Seifer's face, he let his eyes feast on the forest around them, took in the beautiful moon the colour and shape of a broken housel and the water-washed shapes of the trees. He noticed that Fuu and Rai were nowhere to be spotted and somewhere inside him, he realized that they hadn't been here for quite a while, that they had disappeared, that he was, again, _alone_ with the frightening manifestation of doom that was Seifer. More peculiar though than the realization was the fact that Roxas found himself unable to care.

"My eyes are the stars, huh? I see it had quite the effect on you," came the amused voice from Seifer to his right, effectively snapping the sandy-haired boy out of his thoughts. "It's nice to try drinking, isn't it? The first time is quite... revealing, I suppose you could say."

Roxas was so lost in his own feelings that he was unable to produce an answer more intelligent than an unintelligible mumble. Roxas guided the bottle to his lips once again – what was this? His hand wouldn't take order any more! - and emptied it with one long gulp. Ethat yes wanted to pop out of their sockets from the intensely burning sensation were pressed close, alarm sirens that were about to wail were smothered and killed inside the sandy-haired boy's head. When he had downed the full contents of the bottle, Roxas lolled his head into his neck and stared at the moon. Stared at the broken housel and head so empty that if any thought had been able to vocalize itself, its inferior sputters would have been overwhelmed by the echoes his head would have hurled back at it. For the first time since he could remember, Roxas' head was nothing but empty_._

It was a surprisingly beautiful feeling. Or perhaps beautiful, Roxas mused, was not the word; perhaps _thrilling_ could more accurately describe what he was feeling.

He could Seifer move closer to him, could feel his arm brush against his own, his honey-coloured skin against Roxas' own pale, freckled one. This was perhaps the very first time that Roxas felt Seifer's skin on his, the very first time they had made any physical contact. That arm touching his own barely registered in Roxas's brain, though, too empty was it and too determined not to let any thoughts disturb its peaceful levity. Nothing registered with Roxas, not until Seifer spoke again.

"You want me to tell you what I called you here for?"

"Mh... yes," Roxas answered, continuing to stare at the moon. How fitting it was, all of it; there the moon was, large and beautiful, and it had come accompanied by the two most beautiful stars Roxas had ever seen.

"Good," Seifer said, chuckling quietly to himself. "I'm sure you are aware of Mrs. Loz? That woman who has her tangerines stolen almost every weekend? She's pretty desperately looking for the culprit." Seifer paused. "_Poor granny_," he added with his voice practically dripping with sarcasm, but Roxas was way too intoxicated to notice such subtle things as irony.

"Yes... poor granny," Roxas answered almost automatically, his eyes still flexed upon the broken housel that was the moon, feeling sudden inspiration enlightening his brain, a sudden need to do something... artistic, a need he'd never before felt in his life. The night was so nice and balmy; the moon so perfect and calm, the very reflection of the quiet sea in his brain. If Roxas had had something to write on he might have written a poem to praise the beauty and the perfect emptiness in his mind – the kind of sappy poem millions had done before him and equally as many would continue to do long after him.

Alcohol, Roxad had always considered it to be evil. After all, he'd always seen those men, stumbling along the streets scarcely able to support their own weight, reeking like the devil and trying their damnedest not to puke their innards out and splatter them all over the filthy streets of Twilight Town. It had always been scary, those sights – and Roxas had always felt like, with every drunk men he even saw, another tiny part of his quickly decomposing innocence had been snatched away from him.

"Do you know who the culprit is?" Seifer asked from the right.

"I dunno..." Roxas drawled. "Wasn't it you? I just always assumed it was you. You know, when something bad happens..." he hiccuped and rubbed his eyes like a child, "we all just assume that it must have been you." He laughed. "I guess you're our version of the boogeyman."

Seifer laughed. "How flattering. And you know... it's fun... that thrill... it really makes you feel closer." He lowered his voice. "Really strengthens the bond between you and your buds, you know..."

"Ah."

"Yeah... don't you want to go and eat some tangerines?" Seifer leaned closer to Roxas, causing the smaller boy to finally, finally tear his eyes off the moon. Despite the nothingness in his head, Roxas's heartbeat picked up speed when he saw Seifer's floating eyes so close to his, could feel the other's warm, wet breath blowing softly against his cheek and, when he turned his head, against his lips. Roxas, in a word, froze.

Out of eyes opened so widely that his pupil was a perfect, round island amidst whiteness he stared into Seifer's eyes, which were unbearably green, unbearably intimate, unbearably _devious _up close. When Seifer spoke next, it was nothing but a whisper – a whisper that blew gently against Roxas's lips.

"Well... don't you want to try it... stealing some _delicious_," he made a sensual face that stirred something inside Roxas, "tangerines? Don't you want to...?"

Roxas nodded.

A huge, satisfied grin spread over Seifer's lips and he withdrew his presence, causing Roxas to heave a great sigh of relief.

If Roxas had been sober then, he would have gone into another philosophical overhaul regarding why the _fuck_ he had agreed to helping Seifer in his illegal pastimes. Maybe he would have screamed and kicked Seifer right then and there, and then run as fast as he could, run back into the midst of his friends, run back to where Seifer and his poison could never reach him again. Maybe he would even have laughed into Seifer's face, shook his head and returned with the knowledge that Seifer was only a little wannabe-criminal after all. Maybe he would have done all at once.

But, Roxas wasn't sober. And so he stood up without really comprehending what he was doing and followed Seifer into the woods.

**-- tbc**


	3. The Age of Slavery

**Aut****hor's Notes:** Another rough chapter. Please bear with me.

**Revision of Chapter 3:** Prose sharpening, adverb cuts. Cuts of Seifer's POV for POV consistency.

* * *

**+ The End of Every Story +  
**

**+ Chapter 3: The Age of Slavery +  
**

**Revised September 2008**

* * *

Roxas knew, in theory at least, that the voices in his head weren't real. They had some pretty good ideas, though.

Some of them were urging the sandy-haired boy to hit Seifer, to hit him _hard_, and run as fast as his legs could carry his petite teenage frame. Others were going for more imaginative routes, which ranged from deciding to break down in the middle of the road and screaming for mommy all the way to grabbing Seifer's testicles through his loose pants and gnashing them together until they popped.

In the end, he opted to do something quite a lot more unimaginative: setting one foot in front of the other in slow, but increasingly mechanic strides, he followed the youth in front of him in mindless stupor, his thoughts little more than unconnected straws that were resistant to melt into one another and build anything resembling coherency. Though the battling voices in his head proposed so very different ideas, none of them were able to burst through the thick layer of reluctance that had settled over his brain; none were strong enough to break the spell the alcohol had put over him. Putting one step in front of the other seemed like the only thing within reach of his capacities.

He knew that what he was about to do was, at least by the moral compass Roxas had lived by all his life, evil and wrong – and not only that, it was also so unlike him that, throughout his teenage life, the thought had never once crossed his mind.

Yet, there he was, on his way, being led as though he was no longer lord of his own body to do an action he'd never even so much as entertained the thought of doing, and each step his mechanic body took brought him closer. Each inch caused the heaviness and the eerily _wrong_ feeling in his heart to gain in density. A was as though his heart was rotting while it was still beating inside him, uncaring about the fact that the body around it was still very much alive swept over Roxas, very nearly reeling him off balance with its cruelty. One thing was for certain – the happy, bordering on euphoric feeling he had experienced just minutes ago as he'd felt inspiration illuminating his mind in warm and gentle rays had long since made an exit. The memory of the happiness he'd felt was all too intent on following it.

Roxas had again lost all sense for time, but when Seifer's broad back stopped in front of him, he somehow, though not without almost tripping over his feet, managed not to bump into it. He blinked his eyes, the grim knowledge that they must arrived their destination dawning on him. When looking around him, he saw they were in front of a garden - Mrs. Loz's. The yellow, buttery glow of street lamps mingled with the soft silvery rays of the moon, bathing the scenery in a delicate hue of light yellow.

There they were. Paled down to a shade of faint orange in the light, the tangerines were adorning the trees to his right. They seemed, Roxas noted with a faint jump of his heart, to be reaching towards him, to be presenting themselves to him, even _inviting_ him – or at least that's how his intoxicated mind interpreted them.

He swallowed.

The sandy-haired body averted his eyes to gaze at Seifer and flinched upon taking in the smirk plastered all over the older boy's face. Oh, how arrogant and self-loving he seemed right then, how utterly, utterly _superior _to Roxas and the whole world he seemed to think he was. Anger once against started to spread inside the younger boy's body, but the first hatches of fury were suffocated by what Seifer said next.

"I didn't think you'd actually follow me here," he said, winking. "I guess I underestimated you?"

The smile around the taller boy's lips was devoid of all maliciousness; instead, it was a smile Roxas had never before seen edged into the blonde bully's face. It was not a smile of a moment of happiness, nor was it a smile born of any other fickle emotion capable of charming lips into transforming themselves into a smile – instead, it was the smile of someone completely happy and content. A lasting, thoroughly warm smile.

Roxas felt himself enchanted by this smile he had never thought possible the teenager in front of him was capable of producing. The surprises wouldn't end there, however – Seifer, cocking his head to the head in what actually looked _shy_, added softly, "I always respected you somehow, you know...?"

Was he in the wrong movie? Had something the weight of Twilight Town itself fell onto the other boy's head while they had walked and Roxas had silently sparred with his jumbled emotions? Or... was it possible that he had had a wrong impression of Seifer all along...?

_No, wait,_ Roxas told himself, shaking his head. _That can't be right. _

However, Seifer's persistent smile succeeded in confusing Roxas the more time passed. The smile wouldn't vanish. The evilness that had once been attached to the taller boy's skin like a cocoon went undetected by the smaller boy's searching glare.

Shit, just _how_ drunk was he?

Roxas opted for saying, "are you sick or something?" He noticed that his voice still came out slurred with alcohol, the poison apparently very reluctant to leave his body. Trying to mask the effect the alcohol still had on him, Roxas drew his eyebrows together on his forehead and crossed his arms on his chest, regarding Seifer out of eyes spewing as much suspicion as he could muster. His eyes were met by yet another gentle smile which did nothing to settle the upheaval the other boy's strange behavior had sent Roxas's mind into, and neither did it anything to solve the puzzle laid out in front of him. Roxas might not have been the brightest kid in Twilight Town – actually, he _knew_ with certainty that as far as intelligence was concerned, he was not off any better than most of his peers – but he was not completely unintelligent, either. He was not fooled into believing that Seifer had been hiding his secret gentle core all this time _quite_ this easily. Not when he had seen evil shining through his eyes countless times which, coupled with the countenance of his imposing body, had been enough to scare the entire student body of their school. Not when he had seen sheer joy at another person's demise edged so clearly into Seifer's features on numerous occasions before. Not when the bully's triumphant holler had sped across the school's garden so very often.

Lying was not that easy – and people didn't change quite as quickly as that, either.

In spite of being aware of all this, Roxas noticed with mixed feelings that the tension was slowly seeping out of his body, that the hatred and distrust for the other boy was dissolving and scattering away amidst the new feelings of surprise. There was also something else there; the first blossoms of... sympathy? _Fondness_? Roxas struggled with placing it.

Roxas, having been preoccupied with his internal musings, was startled when Seifer spoke next, "I'm not sick. Far from it." Then, he turned his head. "Look, how beautiful the tangerines are. Won't you go and get some for us?"

Roxas didn't quite know why he did it. He would have liked to believe that it was because he simply didn't know what he was doing, but part of him knew very well that that didn't even begin to cover the complex emotions that triggered his actions. The sandy-haired youth felt his steps lead him to closer to the garden while his eyes were transfixed upon the tangerines. Quite out of a sudden, images of Seifer's magnificent and beautiful smile flooded his mind. He witnessed himself marvelling at the purity of it - _the most beautiful smile in the world, on Seifer Almasy's face?_ - but by shaking his head, he managed to relieve himself of them. He replaced Seifer's smile with that of the tangerines inviting him from above.

They were behind a fence and Roxas knew that due to his flexibility and fitness attained through years of skateboarding, it would pose no hindrance to him at all under normal circumstances. He wasn't under said conditions, however. Though the effect had been weakened, the alcohol was still very much holding onto him; the shapes around him still had a blurred quality to them; his head still weighed unusually heavy; his thoughts were still reluctant to be stored away at will.

However, when he approached the fence, doubt evident on his face, one attempt proved that the fence was still no match for him.

Then, nothing but grass, dyed a mellow dark green by the moon, was left standing between himself and the tangerine trees. His eyes never once left the fruits, which to him seemed like pearls dyed a light orange. Their seductive call was as loud and clear in his ears as the singing of a nymph must have been to a lonely sailor. He was thinking of nothing at all as he leapt onto his toes, stretched his arms to touch one of the tangerines and let his fingers caress the pebble-skinned surface of the fruit. Breath hitched in his throat; awe was coursing through his body at high speed, causing his nerves to tingle with excitement and adrenaline. Suddenly, the certainty that _he was stealing_ and just how wrong it was crashed upon him in one violent wave of realization. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins, sweat had started to materialize on his pale skin – yet the hand that was touching the tangerine did not lose any of its eagerness as it wrapped itself around the fruit and finally, eyes wide, breath held, with a gentle tuck, Roxas freed it from its restraints.

All the while he had been expecting something to happen, but suddenly, he couldn't remember what it had been – had he expected Mrs. Loz to storm out of her house, broom raised, ready to beat him into oblivion? Had he even expected the sky to open up to lament the demise of this once-so-innocent boy?

He didn't know. What he _did_ know, however, was that the fruit was heavier than it looked as it fell into his palm and his attention darted back to the fruit at hand almost immediately. Heart still beating so hard he could taste it at the back of his throat, even having been sped up rather than calmed by his very first stolen tangerine, he turned to the other fruits still hanging there, pondering over which one he'd bring for Seifer. Deciding on one, he once again stretched his body and soon enough a second fruit was his. He turned around, facing Seifer.

The sandy-haired body couldn't see the other boy clearly for he was embraced by shadow but Roxas could vividly imagine Seifer standing there with a his trademark smirk sprawled all across his handsome face. Roxas imagined the grin interlaced with the first hints of pride for him and the sudden burst of excitement that had been ignited inside Roxas was impossible to ignore.

Roxas, having sent one last glance to the Loz's house to make sure that the lights were still off and that nobody was about to burst out of it, hurriedly crossed the fence once more. As soon as he was on the other side, he erected himself in front of Seifer. It was only then that the sandy-haired boy noticed he, Roxas, had been wearing a smile on his face and he immediately dropped it, feeling shame and the first hints of regret lifting their ugly heads inside him. Wordlessly, he shoved one of the tangerines into Seifer's hands, lifting his richly blue eyes to meet green ones. He flinched slightly as he was once again presented with the magnitude and power behind those watchful eyes. The owner of those eyes took the tangerine, brushing against Roxas's hand in the process. A smile was playing around Seifer's lips, but this time it was not the powerful, magnificently warm smile he'd been a witness to earlier. It was a much more generic, pleased smile.

"I see you really did steal the tangerines, then," Seifer drawled, regarding Roxas out of eyes that had lost nothing in their mystery and whose irritating effect on the shorter boy had not been weakened any.

"Yeah. I did it," Roxas replied, noting with a detached sense of wonder intermingled with disgust how... _proud_ he sounded.

Seifer took care of that as he wiped out all of Roxas's sense of pride with one brush, replacing the former emotion with great irritation. He bridged the distance between himself and the smaller boy and was soon a mere inches away. The smell and the aura he had brought with him was threatening to crush the sandy-haired boy as the breath got caught border-line painfully in his windpipe. Roxas stared at Seifer out of wide blue eyes. Confusion had long since revealed its presence on his boyish face and his lips were sit into a tight, nervous line. Roxas noticed that his heartbeat had once again sped up – it was pounding against his ribcage as though trying to escape.

Seifer leaned forward again and Roxas did his mightiest to suppress that gasp trying to tear its way out of his throat as the spicy scent, this time mixed with the faint trace of alcohol and cigarettes was brought close enough to feel almost corporeal against his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Roxas could see Seifer smirking as his lips almost touched his ear. His chest tightened for a reason he did not know, perhaps didn't _want _to know.

"If you really did do it... _say it_," Seifer whispered. Then, with one quick motion, he withdrew.

"What?" Roxas asked, his confusion overriding all other emotions, ending the war barely suppressed fear and excitement had been waging. "Saying what?"

Seifer chuckled. "Say that you stole the tangerines. Be proud of it, don't deny it and just say it."

Roxas studied Seifer. Absent was his trademark smirk; instead an unreadable expression had settled onto his features. Roxas pursed his lips, silently weighing his options – was this a test? Did he want him to sort out his loyalties? Was this some sort of ritual they held? Roxas, unable to come up with an answer decided to just do it. Partly because he was so glad that Seifer's presence had retreated he no longer felt to pulsating need to be defiant; partly because he couldn't deny that saying these lines, as dangerously evil as they were, did pose a certain attractiveness to it. Of course, another big part of it was the fact that Roxas, for all intents and purposes, was still drunk.

"I just stole tangerines," Roxas started, his heart sinking mid-way though his sentence, "from Mrs. Loz's garden." For a while the words he'd just uttered kept hanging in the air and for a while, his own heartbeat was the loudest sound to be heard. Then he looked up at Seifer expectantly – and noticed the look on his face.

He froze in horror.

The honey-blonde's face was twisted in maliciousness and it was then that he threw his head back and the laughter erupting from his throat started whipping the air. Seifer was laughing a laugh so evil and thoroughly wrong it reverberated through Roxas's bones and shaking him down to his very core.

Doom broke down upon Roxas. The first rays of the light of realization illuminated his brain, blinding and crippling the battling confusion. Alcoholic bliss had been chased away in its entirety – in its stead, cold sobriety had returned. The alcohol had taken away Roxas's color right along with it.

"You..." Roxas muttered. "You... stop laughing! _You hear me_?"

With a gigantic smirk on his face, Seifer revealed what Roxas had been dreading. Slowly, almost cruelly so, he pulled out the object he had been hiding inside the pockets of his loose black pants. The light of the moon was caught on the object and reflected in brilliant silver, but the beauty of the reflection was by far the last thing on Roxas's mind.

All colour drained from his face.

A voice-recorder. A _fucking __**voice-recorder**_!

And with cruelling certainty, he knew what this all about. Accompanied by one great flash of anger washing over his body, he tackled the taller boy, trying to snatch the recording device out of his hands.

Seifer looked like his insides were singing with the pure joy of seeing the petite boy launch his desperate attack.

With a roar, Roxas attacked him again Seifer chose not to sidestep but to meet him, catching his fist. Seifer spun the other boy's lithe form around and, with one swift motion, crushed him against his body. Roxas could hear his own breath hitch in his throat once again; could feel the terror pass through his in jerky tremors so violent he was sure Seifer felt them too; felt a cold tremor chase across his skin as Seifer buried his nose in his spiky hair, the absurd wonder what his hair smelled like flashing across his mind.

"It feels great, doesn't it?" Seifer murmured. His voice slipped right through Roxas's defenses and into his body; low, caressing, evil. "The anger. Ride on it, little on. _Relish_ in it."

Roxas was horrified. He was close enough to be able to smell Seifer's breath, full of mint chewing gum mixed with the acidic reek of alcohol. It was sweeping hotly over his cheeks and into his ears, sending shivers up and down his spine. Then, it finally hit him and his eyes narrowed as another wave of anger claimed his mind as its own.

What the _hell_ was going on just now? _Was he letting that bully talk him into submission?_

Roxas groaned and with one swift notion, kneed Seifer into the stomach. The bigger blonde momentarily distracted, Roxas seized his chance to wriggle himself out of the other boy's embrace and, as soon as the vice-like grip of Seifer had finally been lifted off of his body, jumped a few steps back to bring as much distance between them as he could, the fist of anger and excitement loosening its grip around his heart with each step he took.

"As good as doing that felt," Roxas said, voice trembling, "this felt even _better_."

"You little git!" Seifer hissed, clenching his teeth but soon regaining his dignity and erecting himself to his full height once more. Then, a cold sneer of superiority slithered across his features. "I wouldn't do that again if I were you. After all, you wouldn't want Mrs. Loz to hear that recording now." He sneered. "_Would you now_?"

Roxas's eyes widened. "You wouldn't..."

Seifer laughed, the sound reverberating shrilly in the smaller blonde's ears. "I _so_ would. _So_ would. So _will_, if you ever so much as dare to defy me from now on."

To any other normal teenager, having revealed that he had stolen a couple of fruits from a garden would hardly elicit so much as a groan or a thread of shame. Most teenagers would probably laugh at this threat, dismiss it with a mere shrug of their shoulders and would have told Seifer he was free to show the recorder to whomever he pleased and would finish by recommending the bully to go shove it up to where the sun never shone.

Roxas, however, wasn't like just any other teenager in this regard.

Having to picture his friends finding out that he had been conned into a crime the gang had sworn themselves they would never commit was horrifying indeed. To top things off, it had been _Seifer_ who had ultimately triggered and it was easy to picture the disappointment on Olette's and Pence's faces that would be edged into their features upon finding out. Even easier was imagining the fury mixed with darker feelings that would be drawn across Hayner's face. Roxas knew that this could very well mean his expulsion from the group and if not an outright, official one, at the very least an emotional, instinctive one. There was no doubt in his mind that, should Seifer have the audacity to reveal to the world what he had just done, it would cause _serious_ repercussions inside his own little world.

Roxas was so lost in his musings that he didn't notice what his opponent was doing. Small, casual steps had been directed into Roxas's direction, who, upon noticing the movements, immediately snapped into fighting position. Seifer, unfazed by the other boy, brought his aura along with the evil rolling off of him closer and closer. It was without a doubt with the most evil smirk Roxas had ever seen that Seifer reached into his pocket once more, leaving the silvery device hanging only inches away from Roxas's nose. The smaller boy didn't even try to grab it – he knew that the very reason Seifer had chosen to show him the recorder was so he could make feeble attempts at snatching it out of his hands, just so the bully could close his fists around it seconds before his own could reach them. He knew that the bone-crushingly evil laughter from before would be the one sawing through his bones when the device had been taken out of his reach once again, ridiculing him for trying to conquer doom at the last moment.

Thus, he didn't try. Instead, he pressed out, "what do you want from me?"

Seifer grinned, returning the device to its place in his pocket. "Nothing much really. Except for..." he trailed off. Again, that unbearable smirk.

Roxas swallowed, narrowing his eyebrows until they were almost touching on his forehead. "Except for?"

Seifer hurled his grin directly into the smaller boy's face as he said the next sentence, a sentence that was powerful enough to make Roxas gasp. "I want you to do _exactly_ what I say."

"_What?!_" Roxas spat. "You... you can't be serious!"

But he knew he was. Dread started to clog his throat; the first tears were pressing against the back of his eyes. He wants to smack Seifer and hit him and hurt him and _kill_ him, but he did none of these things. For some reason, he just stared. At the other boy's eyes, dancing merrily in joy; at his youthful skin, tinged the first hints of red in excitement. Roxas cleared his throat. "You want me to be... your _slave_?"

"Slave? Oh, no. That would be boring," Seifer answered, flashing him a toothy grin. "What I want is something much more... how should I say... _simpler._"

Roxas held his throat, waiting for what he'd say next. He imagined he wasn't feeling unlike a death row prisoner waiting for the date of his execution to be announced.

"All I really want is to spice up our boring town life a bit," Seifer said. "Hasn't it been terribly boring lately...? So, I invented a plan. Do as I say and this summer will be one you'll never forget."

The small boy didn't doubt he'd never forget it – what he doubted a whole lot more was whether he'd ever get the chance to muse over the happenings of the coming summer with his soul still firmly set in his body and life as he'd known it not an unreachable distance away.

"Of course I knew I'd have to... convince you to cooperate." Seifer continued, indicating the device stored in his pocket. He then shrugged his broad shoulders. "I should've known it wouldn't be hard at all. You're so easy to manipulate. So easy to _seduce_."

The last word continued to waft through the air several seconds after they'd escaped Seifer's throat.

Roxas, by now, was shivering, seeing his entire life, shattered and ruined, scattered on the soft floor in front of him. Now matter how hard his brain worked, how much he urged it to come up with a solution, deep inside, he knew that there was nothing he could do. Had his weapon been at hand, there was a chance he could have beaten Seifer – however, with only the brute strength of his body at his disposal, Roxas was painfully aware of the fact that attempts at combat would be futile against the much taller, much more muscular boy.

"What is it you want me to do...?" Roxas muttered underneath his breath. "Tell me exactly what the _fuck_ you want from me!"

"Tomorrow evening, meet me at the Sandlot. There, you and I will fight. Feel free to pick whichever weapon you want." A harsh chuckle. "However, there's a hook."

"You don't say," Roxas hissed.

Seifer smiled. "You'll have to lose to me, in front of everyone. You will also have to do exactly what I tell you to during the battle." He smirked. "It will be quite a sight."

If the situation hadn't been so serious until now and if Seifer hadn't displayed a face that revealed not a hint of anything that would suggest mockery, Roxas would have laughed right then and there.

"What?" Roxas pressed out, first hints of amusement returning to him. "You're so scared of my fighting abilities you have to _blackmail_ me into losing to you in public?"

"Don't be stupid," Seifer sneered. "I could beat you any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Have my good looks started to dissolve your brain cells? Didn't I _just_ say it would be quite a sight? It won't be just a normal fight, Roxas. Oh, no."

Roxas's eyebrows slid together. "If there's anything nasty you're planning -"

"Then what?" Seifer mocked. "Will you ask lover boy to protect you? Will you run crying to the headmaster? Will you pray for God's wrath to unload itself above my head?" He was practically leering at Roxas now. "But to your information, I don't reckon it's anything overly disturbing I'm having in store for you." A pause. "For my standards, anyway."

"Ohh," Roxas cooed cynically, "that's comforting. Tell me."

"Not a chance."

"Tell me!" Roxas demanded, blue eyes sparkling.

"Nope. You'll have to see for yourself. Unless, of course, you want me to reveal the contents of this lovely little recorder to your friends." He paused, scratching his head in mock thoughtfulness. "I wonder how they'll react when I tell them you've secretly become my friend, have converted to my ways? Of course they won't believe me at first, but after hearing the recording...?" He scratched his chin, pretending to be thinking hard. Then he seemed to come to a conclusion and looked at Roxas in mock worry. "I guess they won't be very happy with you after all, huh?"

Roxas could see the evil demons behind the surface of his green eyes dancing around what he imagined to be the bonfire of his very soul. His knuckles were about to break from the force with which he was clenching his fists.

Seifer gave him one final grin. "I guess you'll be there then. Tomorrow, 7 PM, Sandlot."

"Wait!" Roxas called. Seifer stopped in his tracks. "If I do what you say tomorrow... will you give me the recorder afterwards?"

"You will get it. Just remember you're mine for the entire day."

"Even at school?"

"Even at school." Seifer leered. "Unless, you'd prefer I -"

"Shut up," Roxas snapped and Seifer broke into malicious laughter.

And with that, the more muscular boy left, leaving Roxas standing there, rooted to his spot. He would have done nothing with more relief than to burst into tears but he knew that the time for such outward expressions of dismay were a thing of the past. Almost a grown-up now, he would, _could not _cry. Instead, he would find a way out of this. That's right, that's how he'd do it: somehow, he would trick the recorder from Seifer and continue his life the same way it had always been.

Not even Roxas himself could really believe his thoughts.

**- tbc**


	4. Rebellion

**Author's Notes: **Well, woohoo, I continued. I always promised I would one day finish this, and I still fully intend on keeping my promise.

Chapter 4 & 5 were originally one chapter, but I'm so incredibly long-winded ( coughcough ) that I ended up splitting it into two separate chapters... but the good news is, because I wrote them together chapter 5 is already finished as well, so that means there's no way in hell the next chapter is going to take as long (unless I end up forgetting all about chapter 5 on my HD... :( But reviews tend to remind me of such things... erm...).

After chapter 5, there's going to be the big finale (likely 2 or 3 chapters) and after that the epilogue, so we're looking at 8 or 9 entries total for this story. Half-way done! Yay! :)

Thanks for staying with me for half of the ride so far! Thanks for every single review, they mean more to me than you'll ever know (or I'm ever going to admit!).

--

_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 4: Rebellion**_

--

When Roxas opened his eyes the next morning, he didn't know a whole lot of things, but the one thing he knew with certainty was that it had never been harder to drag his body to school.

It was with fear wrapped around his heart that he walked to school and no amount of tests, evil teachers or fights with other students could ever hope to so much as serve as a comparably horrible morning. No, not even the very occasional brawls with Hayner dotting the years of their friendship – which, a testament to the inherent strength of their friendship, had only served to strengthen their bond with the ultimate solving of their problems – could even _hope_ to come close. He felt doom raging in his stomach and panic running along his nerve endings as he slowly pushed open the heavy front door revealing the bustling, lively school hallways with its noises spilling out into the open and right into launching an attack to penetrate Roxas's ears. Until that very day, the mere idea of him and his friends splitting up and parting ways would have caused nothing but a confused shake of his head and a carefree shrug of Roxas's shoulder at the mere impossibility of it all – now, though, pictures of him and Hayner, Olette and Pence separated were flashing in front of his inner eye; their effects were much like those of the horrible, gharish lightning bolts illuminating old, run-down mansions in bad horror movies.

The first steps taken into the school were weighed down by a heavy reluctance; his eyes were darting around wildly, not being able to decide if they wanted to do their best to catch Seifer or his friends, or if they wanted nothing more but to be closed and try to ignore each and every one of the silhouettes busily rushing up and down the corridors. Occasionally, an overzealous student bumped lightly against Roxas's shoulders, causing the short blonde's breath to hitch in his throat and Seifer's image to climb up its way until it was parading around right in front of his inner eye – but every time he caught their faces fully expecting to be confronted by the toothily grinning, bronze-coloured one belonging to Seifer, the face staring back at him with light puzzlement sprawled over it was always one he had never seen before.

Roxas sighed, shook his head, and started to walk toward the doors of his classroom.

_Of course_ Roxas had contemplated staying at home that morning. Oh, how seductive this prospect had seemed, how easy and pleasant – but a closer inspection of the idea had all too quickly revealed to Roxas that not showing up would likely only result in Seifer's mood dropping – and as much as Roxas liked to think of himself as knowing exactly what the bully was capable of, he had to admit that there was no way to tell in what disasters said change of mood would result in. Seifer playing the voice recording to his friends was one of the least of his concerns as soon as Roxas had also realized with the final pang that set his decision to go to school firmly into place that it surely wasn't beyond Seifer to try to threaten Hayner and the others in frustration of Roxas not playing along. Possibly... even hurt them. And as much as Roxas's skin crawled at the mere thought of being invaded by Seifer's scents, sight and crushingly authoritative aura again, the thought of possibly abandoning himself as well as his friends to danger by not showing up was enough to muffle and suffocate the cries of fear wailing through his skull.

Roxas's heart was racing as his hand touched the door to his classroom. He could not help but hesitate. The dark blonde boy was running slightly late, so his friends were probably already inside. Seifer and his posse probably weren't. Seifer not coming to class late was a concept quite unheard of. On the other hand, though, so was the idea of Seifer seeking out lowlifes he not usually bothered to communicate with after class...

He quickly weighed his options, considering to visit the bathroom first to deliberately come to class late, when a voice that spoke up behind him snapped him out of his musings.

"Hey, Roxas," a female voice muttered. Olette.

Roxas's back stiffened. He turned around, his heart hammering away in his chest like a drum, and by the time his azure-blue eyes were hovering over Olette's pretty face, she was already pushing him inside the classroom without another word. Roxas drew breath in quickly as he stumbled inside, watching out of enlarged eyes as Olette quickly rushed in after him. Roxas noticed with a heavy heart that he had never before quite such a grave and worried expression edged into the girl's usually so carefree features.

Roxas frantically looked around the classroom and noticed with relief that Seifer and company were mercifully absent from it. Then, he turned back to the petite girl whose eyes had long since pierced through his skull, pouring silent accusations into it. Roxas swallowed.

"Olette...?" he asked quietly.

Olette shook her head, her shiny hair whipping her face as she did so. "My, Roxas, what have you done?"

Dread rose up inside Roxas at the same time as his heart plummeted down to his stomach. No. No, this couldn't be. It simply couldn't. Had Seifer already shown them the recording? _**No!**_

"What are you talking about?" Roxas pressed out from in between frantic veins pressing against his throat. His panicked eyes searched Olette's, but as much as he looked, the answers weren't spelled out in any language he could read.

Olette's eyebrows drew together in a deep, worried frown. "It's... it's Hayner. Roxas... I think something's wrong with him, he – I think he -"

But at that moment, the very boy they'd been discussing entered the room and when Roxas's blue eyes met Hayner's, he flinched as the realization of just what Olette had been talking about hit him.

For a couple of seconds that seemed to stretch into minutes or hours, Roxas's eyes were hovering over Hayner's face; yet while the expression on Roxas's face started to assimilate itself and reflect the one displayed on Hayner's a little bit more with every moment noisily ticking past, the realization of what was unfolding him before him was reluctant to sink its claws into Roxas's head. Then, slowly, so slowly, as though they were the last drops of blood leaking out of a dead body, all expression left Roxas's face. In a moment that seemed to physically sting, the sandy-haired boy averted his head until the devastation of Hayner's face had mercifully left his vision. It was boneless how he slid into his seat, and it was with an air of hard-wrenching shame that he drew in his shoulders, closed his eyes and pretended to wait – something that may have actually been successful if the image of Hayner's eyes hadn't been right there, lurking behind the curtains of his eyelids.

Hayner's... _pain _had been laid out so openly on his face – his pain right along with his his worry, his _affection_ for him, for Roxas, for him - the undeserving... tangerine thief. Something was clawing at his mind. A realization that had always been there was writhing, thrashing about, demanding attention from Roxas's consciousness. Before he had the chance to examine the awakening realization, however, the thing he'd been dreading the most unraveled right before his eyes.

"Well, good morning, everyone!" Seifer announced, hurling a sunny grin into the classroom. Students were all sending him puzzled looks – Seifer not coming to class late was an occurrence so rare it had escaped everyone's memories. But despite not knowing why exactly he had chosen to grace the school with his presence earlier than usual, Roxas was pretty sure that everybody in the class knew that there was no chance in hell it could be good news.

The students in the class tightened up visibly as Seifer marched into the room. Roxas's face flushed the moment Seifer's presence passed, his stomach doing a near-painful flip as he was concentrating all his mental energy into pleading Seifer _not_ to talk to him, to ignore him and to in fact forgot all about his very existence. He could see out of the corner of his eyes how Olette rushed to her seat, doing her best to avoid looking at the burly king of their school. Roxas's eyes widened as they fell on his best friend.

Hayner was rooted to his spot, staring at Seifer out of huge, emotional eyes – eyes that just looked about ready to trigger a reaction so impulsive it could range anywhere from a first blow to a full-body tackle and so vehement it could very well result in a brawl yet unseen on school grounds. _Please_, Roxas's mind pleaded. _Please, Hayner, don't do anything stupid. Don't attack him. __**Please**__. _Roxas closed his eyes, trying to somehow tame the wild animal his heart had turned into. The seconds ticked by. _Tick-tack, tick-tack_. Hayner was looking at Seifer, and Seifer was looking back at Hayner. One was studying the other, clearly with bent up emotions but confused enough not to be able to place them; the other was glaring at the other in a way that spelled superiority in bold letters. And even before Hayner averted his eyes, doing what Roxas had mentally been urging him to, everybody knew that Seifer was winning. _As he always did,_ a voice inside Roxas's head could not help but comment.

Hayner slid back into his seat, but Roxas did not catch what expression he had on his face as he did so. He realized it was because looking at his best friend – his very best friend he'd ever had and could likely ever hope to have – would prove too heart-wrenching. The sandy-haired boy willed his eyes to flex upon the desk in front of him, ready to get into waiting mode. Slowly, one by he one, he banished every single thought out of his troubled mind until he had muted and killed even the quietest voice that had been wailing and crying,_ I'm sorry, Hayner._

The teacher entered and class commenced and Roxas waited and waited. What she droned on about, he did not know, and even if he had been interested, he wouldn't have been able to focus anyway. It wasn't until _it_ landed in front of him that Roxas was – quite rudely at that – jerked out of his stupor. Before him, on his very desk, was a piece of paper he couldn't remember having placed there himself, shining brightly amidst the starkness of his desk. Bright and pretty like a miniature star. Only, as Roxas realized with a pang, likely to be a lot less friendly.

His first thought was about Hayner as he grabbed the piece of paper and unfolded it with shaking hands, but one look at the elegant handwriting was enough for realization of just who had sent him the note to sink in. He knew that handwriting. Wasn't it ironic, in a way, that Seifer, the one boy whose humanity nobody could help but harbor doubts of, was to be the one with the most beautiful, elegant handwriting?

_Hey Roxas_.

_Bored to death of this fucking class, aren't you? But worry, not – I have just the antidote to your boredom._

_Your first order._

Roxas's eyes darted over to where Seifer was sitting – and sure enough, the emerald green eyes of his opponent were firmly trained on him. Looking into the blonde's face caused the smaller boy's stomach to give a funny jolt.

_First order?_ Roxas's mind thought frantically. _Here? __**Now**__?_

A cloud of doom gathered over Roxas's head, and his mind tricked him into thinking he could hear it glee in joy as it was about to split open. Just as the boy has started to hurriedly scribble an answer, asking him what the _hell_ was wrong with him and whether he couldn't the_ fuck _postpone this until after school, Roxas's body came to a complete halt. His breath hitched, he could've sworn his heart skipped a beat – and all he was left with was helplessly watching on as the beginning of the end of his life unfolded in front of him.

Seifer had stood up. In a very twisted way, it suited him, to be the only one standing amidst of sea of seated students – a cruel leader coolly regarding his minions was what he looked like. The teacher, a pretty young recruit named Rinoa Heartilly, one of the few popular teachers at school, stopped writing on the blackboard, her eyes trained on Seifer while the rest of her face had given way to bewilderment and confusion. To Roxas it seemed like every single movement that had been going on this room came to a halt as countless breaths were drawn in.

It was the teacher who broke the silence first, managing to get hold of her composure at least. "Seifer, what are you doing?" she demanded, although fear had managed to creep its way into her voice, nearly breaking it. When he didn't answer, she repeated her question – but fell into the same silence as everybody else as Seifer started to slowly walk toward her. Roxas, and everybody else, watched the scene in front of them, not one pair of eyes daring to avert itself from the intriguing events unfolding. When Seifer had reached the front of the classroom, the students witnessed how the teacher immediately gave way to Seifer and let him pass, perhaps instinctively knowing there was no point in resisting Seifer, or perhaps because she trusted him not to wreak havoc on the blackboard. Roxas had to admit though, a much more likely possibility was that the young teacher was simply as scared of Seifer as the entire rest of their goddamn school was.

The blonde grabbed a piece of chalk and started to write. Dozens of eyes attached themselves to the back of his broad, masculine hand, holding the piece of chalk in an eerily elegant and refined way. Other eyes were staring at the back of his golden head from which the quiet sounds of snickers could be heard when one was listening intently enough. Still other eyes, Roxas was sure, had crept down to take in the muscles playing underneath the honey skin with each stroke of the chalk, and the long, lean bones of his back, exposed to the world.

Nobody broke the silence until after Seifer had finished writing, but when he did, the class let out one collective gasp of surprise, and as though the hold the situation had held over the teenagers had suddenly been lifted, dizzying, rapid discussion filled the room.

_Today, 7 PM, the Sandlot._

_The fight of the year – come and watch!_

The last bit of colour left Roxas's face.

"Mr. Almasy, care to explain what you had to disrupt my class for?" The teacher did her best to sound professional, but the tremor in her voice gave her fear away.

"I'm afraid not, Miss Heartilly. It won't be me who will explain," Seifer flashed her one dazzling smile, then turned to his audience – and when his eyes fell onto Roxas, blood thirst, arrogance and all things evil and unclean sped out of Seifer's face toward him. Toward him and no one else they came running, leaving Roxas with no choice but to meet their force. Smiling – no, _grinning_, grinning smugly and evilly – Seifer continued, "but I'm sure our favourite student Roxas has a thing or two to say about it. Roxas, if you'd be kind enough to explain..."

Voices erupted from all around Roxas – some were amused, some displeased, all of them surprised. The weight of the dozens of eyes now focusing exclusively on the sandy-haired boy was enough to make his breath go faster, for sweat to break out and the first droplets of it to pearl on his forehead. Although he could not see the gazes for his own was still locked intently on Seifer, he could _feel_ them – and on the scale of sensations which ranged all the way from orgasms to wiping your ass with poison ivy, this one was unpleasant enough to rival the very bottom.

Roxas started to shake. Fear wormed his way up his throat, clawed its way into his stomach and gathered his heart into an embrace way too tight. He didn't dare break eye contact with Seifer, whose smugness slowly started to dissolve as impatience was starting to bleed its way into his features. Everybody expected him to say something, but even as he opened his mouth, nobody but hitched breaths came out. What was he supposed to say? What _could_ he say? Why did Seifer have to humiliate him like this? _**Why was he doing this to him?**_

"Roxas, come on and tell them about our little _rendez-vous_," Seifer sneered. It was malicious enough for several of his classmates to flinch, but Roxas didn't notice, just as he hadn't registered anything else people around him had been doing. The environment had long since melted away - Seifer the only one left in Roxas's vision - yes, even the only one left in his thoughts. All other students were resembling hazy shapes on watercolour paintings; their voices nothing more than background noise coming from so far away. He swallowed, and then, suddenly, it happened.

His stomach turned painfully, he felt a wave of nausea run through his body, and before he could register what he was doing, much less defy his own body's movements, he had already gotten up, whipped around and went for the door. Willing his ears not to hear the collective gasps coming from out of the classroom and hexing his eyes not to see the shocked expression on his friends' faces, he carried himself with wobbly strides that seemed determined to sway and hinder him. Indeed, he came close to falling more than once; yet somehow the sandy-haired youth managed to stumble out into the hallway. Making his way for the boy's bathroom, it was only when he was jerked around violently by a vice-like grip on his shoulder that he snapped out of his stupor, only when he was crushed against the wall of the hallway with his skull connecting painfully with the wall that he started to wonder why the hell he had just done what he had done.

Roxas looked up into Seifer's eyes. Roxas heard the bustling from inside of the classroom – was his mind playing tricks on him, or was that Olette screaming? - but the sound was soon cut off as the much bigger boy dragged him along the hallway until they reached the boy's bathroom. Seifer opened the door, pushed himself along with the struggling smaller boy inside. As soon as the door closed behind the two boys, the sound of a lock being turned reverberated through the hallway.

* * *

The class was in complete chaos as soon as Roxas had left. Everyone had had to witness open-mouthed how Seifer had sprinted after Roxas like a lioness after its prey. More than one of the students had thought they had seen something closely resembling bloodlust inside Seifer's eyes. Students were running around freely inside the classroom, talking and muttering and screaming and gargling, creating a dizzying mess of torn pieces of voices and conversation that was thundering around Hayner in a maelstrom of buzzing noise.

Through the maelstrom though, he was hearing one voice much more clearly than any other, and it just happened to be the one voice he would much rather not hear at the moment.

When Seifer had run after the stumbling Roxas, Hayner's good friend Olette had let out one piercing scream and had then run over the Hayner's side where she had started to scream at him while urgently shaking his shoulders.

No matter how he tried to shut off his ears , her shrieks violently bore their way into his ears and plunged themselves into his consciousness.

"Hayner!" she gasped. "What are you still doing here? You need to get out of there. You need to help Roxas!"

Olette hesitated as she took in Hayner's form and realized for the first time just how _devastated_ he looked. His eyes were hollow – yes, almost dead. The expression on his face was unmoving, seemingly forever frozen in place. His face was harder than usual, making him seem a lot older than he really was.

"Hayner!" Olette insisted, feeling her heart tearing apart by having to bother Hayner, but her fear for Roxas overriding all over emotions. "Hayner, you've got to do something. Seifer may_ kill _him!"

At the sound of the word "kill", Hayner did indeed flinch, but while Olette had expected for his whole face to light up in realization, it didn't take long for the unemotional mask to once again snuggle up against Hayner's face. He was not speaking, and Olette felt the panic drumming away in her stomach; felt the sweat breaking out all over her body; felt the fear for Roxas's life rebelling against all sane and selfish thought. She didn't stop shaking Hayner's shoulder, not until he finally, perhaps having reached the end of his patience, brushed her hand aside with one less-than-gentle stroke and finally turned his head to flex his honey-brown eyes upon the panicked girl. He felt his heart call out to Olette in pain as he saw the naked fear mingling with the affection for Roxas inside her and he felt the knot in his throat only intensifying as he saw the begging on her face, in her eyes. He felt sorry for her that very moment, more sorry than he'd ever felt for her – but he couldn't grant her her wish. As much as he longed to soothe his friend's fears, as much as he _himself_ wanted to do nothing more than to run up to Seifer and kick his ass for even _daring_ to lay a hand on Roxas – _his_ Roxas – the truth of the matter was that he... couldn't.

He couldn't, because he had understood.

"He won't kill him, Olette." He saw that she was about to interrupt him, possibly scream again, so he hurriedly added, "I _know _he won't. Trust me." His face darkened, the pain in his eyes glittering like dying stars. "And if he _does_ so much as leave a bruise on Roxas, I _will_ without a doubt kill him. I promise you."

"Why?" Olette demanded, tears fighting their way out of her eyes, her contorted in a horrible mix of confusion and defiance. "Why won't you go out and save him? He's your best friend! You can't know for sure Seifer won't hurt him. We don't know Seifer and wasn't it always _you_ who told us how evil and dangerous he was?" Her face hardened. "I can't believe you forgot all that, Hayner."

"I've come to realize something," Hayner said. "What is going on right now... this _thing_ between them...it is only between the two of them. And I have a feeling that..." his heart contracted in pain while a sigh was doing its best to worm its way out of his throat, "that Roxas wouldn't want to have it any other way."

Olette stared at him. At first, the expression on her face was the same that had been on it earlier, when she had screamed at him, grabbed his shoulder and shaken it with all the might of her petite little body – but then it gradually changed. Hayner had been friends with Olette for so long that he immediately knew what the change on her face meant – she had understood. And with a pang so violent that it almost sent his stomach into upheaval, he realized that, rather than just the words he had just uttered, she had grasped something else entirely, as well – the one thing nobody but him knew, nobody but him _could_ ever know.

Panic was thrashing about inside his insides like a monster tied down in vain; his thoughts were crushing against each other, hindering each other, making it impossible for any intelligent one of them to make its cause clear to Hayner's mind.

Before Hayner could reply, the teacher spoke up.

"Please, everyone, return to your seats," she said, running one of her hands through her dark hair. "I'm continuing the lesson now."

Olette stared at the teacher grimly, but eventually complied. Not, however, without sending Hayner one more look that caused a shiver to run down his spine and an intense bang of frustration to clog his throat. The look had been hard to read, but one thing seemed obvious: Olette had figured out what this was all about and while she wasn't yet ready to accept it, Hayner had no doubts that she eventually would – when it came to what she would go on to do to solve this mess, though, he couldn't even so much as wager a guess.

The teacher interrupted Hayner's train of thought once more. "Pence, why don't you answer task number 4 in our literature book, page 97? I trust you have read the book I assigned."

The class fell silent. So this was it – even the teacher was too scared of Seifer to send someone after the two fighting teens, even she too intimated by his wrath that she chose to ignore the... Hayner struggled to come up with an appropriate word... _disease_ that was Seifer Almasy. The disease that had done a grueling job at dismantling the core of their school and had been so successful at invading every corner of the minds of everyone in it. Yes, Hayner decided, the word disease fit Seifer Almasy remarkably well.

Teacher Rinoa Heartilly was smiling at Pence in a way that was obviously meant to be encouraging – instead of that, however, it came out grotesque and wrong. It was a smile that failed to hide the battling emotions underneath, a smile so fake as though someone was pulling up the corners of a corpse's mouth.

All eyes turned to Pence, who until this moment, had been sitting at his desk in complete silence, unmoving, seemingly uncaring. While the weight of every pair of eyes in the classroom was on him, he calmly opened his book and when he spoke, the words came out clearly and firmly – and only the slight tremor underneath them belied the seeming ease with which he spoke them.

"Task 4: describe the characters of Risse and Maello," he read. "In the book _l'Ouverture,_ Risse is the predator while Maello is the prey. Up until the point of his seduction by Risse, Maello had been a timid person with identity problems, and as soon as Risse stepped in and tried to give him the one thing Maello had always been yearning for – a place and an identity – it was easy for the predator to claim Maello as his own, and to pull him over to his part of life. The dark side." All eyes were resting on Pence as he continued, "it is fair to say that if it hadn't been for Maello's identity issues, Risse's tries to claim him as his own would have been quite futile – it was the combination of their characters that allowed the story to play out the way it did."

Rinoa Heartilly was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, staring at Pence out of a big dark eyes.

"...am I right?" Pence asked, a worried look slithering over his face.

"Quite right. Yes, Pence... very good," the teacher said, smiling nervously. "It seems you have read the book with interest indeed." Relief seemed to wash over her face as she straightened her body and announced with newly-found authority, "now, to continue with the class we will now move on to -"

Hayner stopped listening to the pretty teacher, her voice becoming nothing more but background noise. His thoughts returned to where they belonged – Roxer, his best friend... _and maybe more_.

Hayner shivered, buried his head between his arms and, desperately trying to calm down his thundering heart, he tried to do the one thing his skills in had always been so far inferior to Roxas's.

Waiting.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Yeah I know... not enough Roxas/Seifer interaction in this chapter. But trust me, the next chapter makes up for it... and it features a nice scene that I think some of you may have been waiting for. :)

See you in chapter 5!


	5. Submission

**Author's Notes:** Well, chapter 5. All that's left to write is the finale now. Please stick with me! :)

--

_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 5: Submission**_

--

When Roxas's head connected with the hard tiles of the bathroom wall, his vision blurred. Wheezing, he tried to wiggle his way out of Seifer's grasp, but quickly realized his tries were doomed to fail – the blonde's vice-like grip wouldn't loosen, wouldn't give way. Instead, it would even intensify the strength of its tugs and shakes.

If Roxas had been able to feel anything but pain, he would have been able to smell Seifer's intoxicating cologne; would have been able to look into those pools of emerald and seen the fury burning inside them. His foggy brain may have come up with the thought that they looked like they were the bonfire of his very soul, smoldering out of hidden depths. As it were, though, the only realization able to make its presence known was the pain – the pain from his head connecting with the walls, the pain from his stomach revolting, the pain of his whole body being dragged and dealt with as though he were a doll and Seifer a cruel child.

Roxas felt Seifer's hands seizing the front of his shirt crushing his whole body against the bathroom wall as Seifer's body tackled him. Roxas's eyes flew open as all air was knocked out of him, and in one painfully slow, but heart-wrenching moment he was convinced he was going to die – going to die right here, at the hands of Seifer Almasy, the school bully. He was going to die on the dirty bathroom tiles that had served as a cemetery to cigarettes, dirt, worse things – all kinds of junk without use or worth. Just like him. How fitting it was that he was going to die here, Roxas's mused, as far as he was able to in between heavy collisions with the hard bathroom walls. Yes, it was indeed perfectly fitting he would die here – and if he was going to perfectly honest with himself, who he was being killed by was just as perfectly fitting. Roxas hadn't ever met anyone as worthy of killing him as Seifer Almasy before...

"Roxas." The tone was sharp enough to make Roxas's eardrums want to cower in fear. "Roxas," Seifer boomed again, and this time it was enough for Roxas to open one eye, then the other. The first thing he saw was green – an impossibly rich kind of green, the kind of green rarely seen in humans. It looked beautiful and peaceful, the raw opposite of the expression on the rest of Seifer's face.

"What exactly did you pull in there?" Seifer demanded. Roxas could feel the weight of Seifer's body pressing against his own. Their chests were connected, and so were their stomachs. For some reason, it no longer seemed like he and Seifer were two separate entities – by now his senses had cleared up enough for his nose to no longer be able to resist the attack of his elusive scent, the cologne with the unlovely smell of cigarettes and things evil and unclean lurking right underneath. His skin was tingling with the proximity of Seifer, like his being wanted to jump out of it to escape – but in which direction, he didn't know. Did he want to jump out of his skin to flee, or to snuggle even closer up to the intoxicating bully...?

It wasn't until Seifer lightly slapped his cheek that all these weird thoughts finally left his mind and a kind of clarity returned. His cheek stang, but he ended up being thankful for the slap as the pain travelled up to his brain and managed to clean up the utter mess the half-finished fragments of thoughts had left in there, storing away all the ridiculous ideas that had been roaming his mind like pirates a helpless coastal city. _What was I thinking just know?_ his mind called. _Have I gone completely crazy? What's wrong with me? Why was I giving in to him like that? _

That's when Roxas began to struggle. "Get...off...of me!" he pressed out, trying to push Seifer's weight off of him. "Get off..."

And Seifer did. But before Roxas had the chance to do so much as send the bully a confused look, red hot pain exploded on his cheek and his body was turned sideways, stumbling forward, his knees just barely managing to catch his own weight before he could dive nose-first into the gruelling dirt of the bathroom tiles. His cheek was singing and stinging with the pain that managed to send its bolts up and down his nerve endings with electrifying speed. It took a while for Roxas to comprehend that he had been backhanded – but when he did realize, an emotion returned that he only now realized had been painfully missing.

Rage. Hot, white, blind _rage_.

"What the..._fuck_, Seifer!" Roxas yelled, swiftly erecting his body and turning to his opponent. "Who do you think you're slapping around like a bitch?" Roxas went into fighter position, raising both arms.

"Good to see you regained some of your will," Seifer said, smiling broadly. "You were _just_ starting to get boring."

Roxas smiled entirely without humor. "If I was boring, would you leave me the fuck alone?"

"Perhaps," Seifer mused. "Not that you would be in much of a position to feel relieved once I was done with you. There's no easy way out of this, Roxas." And then he smiled, but it was the creepiest smile Roxas had ever seen. Wasn't a smile, by its nature, supposed to be a sign of friendliness and warmth – of all things good and clean? Only Seifer managed to color his smiles black and sell them as guns, and only he managed to sick fear and desperation on Roxas's heart with just a simple gesture.

"There's no way out of this, Roxas," Seifer repeated, again smiling in that sick, downright _wrong_ way. "You're mine now, and you will be mine until I get bored of you and dispose of you. And let me warn you – there is a high possibility that by the time I'm done with you, you will be completely and utterly_ ruined_." He laughed. "And little stunts like you just played in there – daring to _defy_ me – those won't do anything to make your life any easier. I will punish your resistances." He walked closer to Roxas, invading the boy with his scent, his aura. He leaned into the smaller boy, close enough for Roxas to feel his breath on his skin. The blonde whispered into his ear in a low, seductive voice, "_each_ and _every__** one**_ of them."

For a moment, Roxas simply froze as the full weight of the threat sank in. Roxas's breath started to go faster, and Seifer's closeness did nothing to ease the anxiety – yet a small part of him, one that was quickly expanding, was reluctant to take a few steps back to relieve himself of the crushing proximity of the taller boy. Defiance had long since firmly taken root inside the smaller boy's body and he noticed with a pang that he was welcoming it.

"You may threaten me all you want," Roxas pressed out, "but I'm not someone you can use like this. I'm not a pawn in your twisted, perverted little games. As much as you'd like to think you do,you can't do whatever you want with me. I'm _not_ a nobody!"

Seifer threw back his head and laughed. The sound reverberated in Roxas's ear and sew through his bones. Anger exploded behind Roxas's eyeballs; anger that quickly commenced its descent into the smaller boy's body while wailing for control of it. The smaller boy's body listened, and before he could comprehend his own motions, he had already shoved Seifer back with one hard, fast push. Seeing Seifer stumble from the surprise of the attack, triumph lit up in his mind, but not giving himself time to relish in it, he turned on his heel, flexed his eyes upon the door and ran. Ran, perhaps for his life.

In his vision, the door jumped closer and closer, welcoming the sprinting youth, and he stretched out his arms eagerly, aiming for the door knob. Triumph and joy overwhelmed him as his fingers wrapped themselves around the door knob – but just as suddenly as his attempt at escaped had started, it ended.

Seifer grabbed him by the shoulder. Panicked thoughts flew around his head, then shook with repercussion as his head once again connected painfully with the wall.

"Didn't I _just_ tell you not to defy me?" Seifer roared. He then stared at Roxas for a couple of heartbeats, during the duration of which Roxas was rendered unable to do anything but stare into those sucking, green pools that were Seifer's eyes. _What an amazing color they are,_ one tiny voice amidst the mess that was Roxas's mind called out. Amazing, clear green, rendered by long, thick eyelashes – easily the most beautiful and feminine part on Seifer's body. Wasn't it so perfectly ironic, Roxas thought, that the most _perfect_ pair of eyes belonged to possibly the most _vile_ creature?

Roxas slapped away Seifer's hands still grabbing his shirt, trying to compose himself. "Why _shouldn't_ I defy you?" Roxas challenged. "What was the fucking _point_ of embarrassing me in front of everyone back in there? Just tell them fucking yourself if you so desperately want people to watch me kick your ass!"

Seifer grinned. "Do you really need me to tell you why I did it?" He lowered his voice. "Have you still not figured out that you being distressed, you being embarrassed... you being _hurt_... is possibly the most beautiful thing in the world...?" It was gone too soon for Roxas to identify it without a doubt, but he thought to have seen something like hesitation slither across his opponent's face.

Roxas himself didn't know what to think. Rational thought having once again deserted his mind, he found himself incapable of comprehending – so what Roxas did was simply to utter the question that had been gnawing away at him from way back when. He had been searching for this question's answer for hours on end but had never been able to come up with anything resembling a satisfactory explanation. So, he asked – but regretted asking as soon as the words had left him in one hurried spurt.

"Why me? Why did you choose _me_ to torture? Why not Hayner? He's stronger than me. Why not the boy sitting next to me... Mika? He's far more handsome than me. Why not Pence? He's far smarter than me. Why... why me? Why me, Roxas, me without any special talents, without any dreams... yes, without anything that defines who I am. Why _me_?"

Color rushed into his face as soon as he finished speaking, and right along with it came the fear rushing to clench his heart. He watched Seifer out of wide, emotional eyes, glittering from out of the deepest depths of Roxas's soul. He couldn't believe he had just laid out his emotions like that in front of Seifer – the last person on _earth _he wanted to announce his most guarded emotions to. In theory, at least.

Seifer smiled. Roxas guarded his heart, trained his ears to deafness as he fully expected the weight of Seifer's nasty comeback to try to wriggle its way through his defenses. Unexpected was the softness the whisper that followed carried, as a surprise came the sincerity engraved in it.

"Do you really not know how special you are...?"

Roxas stared at Seifer out of wide eyes. Roxas would have said that his mind was unable to comprehend what the blonde had just said that moment – but perhaps, saying that he was unwilling to was far closer to the truth.

"How am I special?" Roxas breathed, inwardly flinching at just how desperate his voice sounded even to himself. "I'm just... Roxas."

_Just Roxas_, his mind echoed. That's right. _Just Roxas... but..._

_But... who __**is**__ Roxas?_

"That's right, you're Roxas." Seifer repeated. Then, his smile dropped, revealing the serpent that had been biding its time underneath. "Which doesn't stop me from having to punish you for defying me. I'm sure you don't want me to play the tape in front of the whole class, don't you?"

Roxas gnawed his teeth in frustration. "Oh, fucking hell! What do you want from me?" he spat out from in between his teeth.

Seifer gave a mock sigh. "Didn't I tell you all of this yesterday...? You know, I knew you weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer – what I _didn't _know was that even your short-term memory, or rather _lack_ of, could rival that of a fly."

Roxas wanted to yell in frustration. Instead, he spat,"I fucking well remember and you fucking well know what I'm asking, you son of an bitch! What do you want from me _now_? Why did you drag me into this bathroom?" He narrowed his eyes. "Fine! I'll fucking come to the Sandlot tonight if you want me to so much and... fine, I'll even go back to class and announce our fight there if I have to, as well! That's what you want from me right now, isn't it? Okay, fine, I'll do it! I'll go right back in there! Enough of this bullshit, let's get it over with! I'll do it! Is that quite enough for you and if there's nothing else I can help you with - may I leave now, you self-absorbed, conceited, foul-smelling, demonic, abhorrent, _evil_ little piece of _**shit**_?"

The force of Roxas's words wafted through the air even after they had been spoken. Silence lay itself over the scene like a thick curtain, muffling even Roxas's heavy, irregular breathing. The longer Roxas had spoken, the more animated and passionate he had become. A dam had seemed to break loose, and every word he had spat out had increased in contempt, increased in hate. When he had arrived at the last word, he had unleashed with so much rage and disgust that even Seifer – even Seifer himself - had done something Roxas couldn't imagine him to have ever done before. He had flinched.

Roxas was panting hard; Seifer could see his skinny body shaking with every breath he took, almost overextending the capacity of his lungs. But most exciting of all – more than even the beautiful, cerulean eyes glittering in hate and disgust; more than even the flushed skin that had turned an enticing red – were Roxas's _lips_.

They were trembling, _shivering_ even in raw and utter disgust, pain and fear– in short, they were _**beautiful**_.

And then it happened.

Seifer crossed the gap between himself and Roxas, grabbed Roxas by the shoulders and crushed his lips against Roxas's. Roxas let out a muffled cry, his hand reaching up immediately to push against Seifer's chest, but his pushes may just as well have been a butterfly's against a steel pipe.

A small cry escaped the smaller boy's throat as several things happened all at once. His back was pushed back against the wall once again; his wrist were forcefully yanked away from Seifer's chest and pinned against the wall, his jaw was opened border-line violently and one eager, hot, wet tongue entered his mouth. It was the first time a tongue – _any_ tongue – had ever entered the virginal cave that was Roxas's mouth. _N_o, Roxas's mind screamed. _Please no. Stop! __**Stop!**_

Roxas wanted to gag, but couldn't. His eyes were opened, thrashing about in panic in their eye-sockets. His brain was not able to comprehend a single thing as the violation continued. He struggled against Seifer, he wanted to break free, but he couldn't – Seifer started pressing against him more urgently, and a small moan escaped the blonde's throat, a moan that reverberated painfully inside Roxas's mind and several times in his body. Seifer's tongue was soft, a lot softer than he'd ever imagined it to be. It tasted of mint chewing gum and something else – _Seifer_. He tried to close his mouth but couldn't – Seifer's jaw was pressing against his so urgently it _hurt. _Roxas would never have guessed that kissing could be painful.

Another low sound escaped Roxas's throat as Seifer pushed his tongue yet deeper into the smaller boy's mouth. Seifer's tongue started to explore. It ran along the velvety line of his cheeks, lined his teeth, then proceeded to rub itself against Roxas's own immobile tongue with more and more speed and urgency. Roxas didn't reciprocate – how _could_ he? But as time went on, he couldn't deny that was Seifer was doing to him actually felt...

_Good._

He didn't have time to marvel over this realization, though. Before he knew what he was doing, Roxas had already moaned. His resistance had already started to crumble; the brick stones of his former contempt gathering to his feet. He noticed he was no longer writhing against Seifer's body, that he was no longer trying to wriggle his way out.

Roxas moved his tongue experimentally against Seifer's – only a twitch, then two - and soon he was circling Seifer's in fast movements. It felt like all of Roxas's mouth – no, not just his mouth, his whole _being_ – was filled by that wet, velvety, _heavenly_ thing that was Seifer's tongue.

Seifer's hand travelled down, over Roxas's back down to his ass, and Roxas's moaned loudly against Seifer's mouth as the blonde teen grabbed his butt, lifting him off the ground as he did so and crushing him against his chest. Roxas let out a hitched cry at the feeling of being lifted, a cry that was swallowed whole by Seifer. Never breaking the kiss, never interrupting the wild slashing, the blind darting of their eager tongues, Roxas felt himself wrapping his legs around Seifer's hips, his arms around Seifer's neck. If he had been in any position to mind, he may have noted his own eagerness with disgust.

One of Seifer's arms stopped supporting Roxas's butt, ran up and down his back several times, then went up to his head, burying itself into Roxas's hair. Roxas yelped as Seifer tugged borderline-violently on Roxas's head, tilting his head back to give his tongue better – and _deeper _– access to Roxas's mouth. It was a good thing the smaller boy was too lost in the new sensation to hear his own moans back then. He would have been very embarrassed to hear his excited noises of arousal as Seifer's tongue penetrated his mouth as deeply as it would go, and he still wanted it to go in deeper.

_This is so wrong. This is so wrong. This is so __**fucking **__wrong!_ something inside Roxas screamed, but the voices sounded dull and muffled, not being able to break through the heavy layer of lust that had spread itself over Roxas's mind. His heart was beating so fast he could hear it, could feel his body shiver at the force of his heart pumping blood full of adrenaline through his body. And no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, he had to admit that he was aroused. Roxas was rock-hard and so was Seifer – their erections were touching through the material of their jeans, and wrapping his arms and legs tighter around the taller boy, Roxas rocked his hips forward, relishing in the exquisite touch.

And if Seifer hadn't, as sudden as he had initiated it, stopped the molestation, there was no way to tell what indecent actions would have transpired in the bathroom of Twilight Town High School that fateful day.

It was with little more than one jerk that Seifer dropped Roxas onto the floor and for the first couple of moments after his butt had made acquaintance with the bathroom floor, Roxas was left unable to do anything other than blink as the realization slowly bled into his brain. The sandy-haired boy stared at Seifer out of wide, glittering, sparkling blue eyes; his hair a tousled mess; his shirt half-unbuttoned, revealing pale skin covered by the faintest of dusts of freckles; his lips smeared with their mixed saliva and tinted a gentle red from their combined fervour. If Seifer had ever seen anything more beautiful in real life before, he could not remember.

"What? Why did you stop..?" Roxas pressed out, looking at the taller boy in front of him out of puzzled eyes. When he realized just how wanton and displeased he sounded, hot shame exploded inside him, its force enough to make him bite down on his own tongue and to quickly get up from the bathroom floor where Seifer had discarded him like a used condom, bravely fighting down the noises of pain even as he felt his tail bone throbbing in protest. _Oh my_, Roxas mentally chided himself. _Oh my, I just sounded like a horny bitch! _His pride lay wounded and bleeding on the floor and it had taken Roxas's sexual excitement right along with it. With his body and mind both clearing up, Roxas noticed that the most prominent emotion left behind was shame. Wild, thrashing shame gnawing away at his innards.

Seifer was staring at Roxas without replying. A small grin was playing around his lips, his whole face a testament to how pleased he felt.

"Why did I stop?" Seifer echoed. "Well, it would be boring to fuck you right here and now, wouldn't it...?"

Roxas winced, hot shame staining his cheeks a fiery red. A dark look slithered over his face as he suddenly realized why Seifer had stopped. To interrupt the kissing - _kissing?_ Roxer mentally screamed. _Oh hell, he just __**kissed**__ me, didn't he?_ - put Seifer in that position of power he so craved and needed. Had it been Roxas who had somehow managed to wriggle himself out of Seifer's embrace and put an end to the making out, it would have put Roxas bestowed upon with sudden control. And well, Seifer clearly could not allow that to happen.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, Roxas's breath hitched in shame as he saw his own disheveled state, and started to run his hands through his hair as well as put his clothes into proper array both as quickly and as properly as he could muster. Before he could finish, though, Seifer had already grabbed his wrist once more and Roxas looked up to meet the taller blonde's eyes, defiance spelled all over the smaller boy's face as he did so.

It was a marvelous sight indeed, to watch that defiance that had so clearly been imprinted onto the sandy-haired boy's face crumble. With every moment ticking past, he lost grip of his defiance a little more, and then a little more still. It wasn't long until his face had banished every form of resistance, and in its stead something not unlike awe had claimed the smaller boy's pretty face as his own.

_Those eyes_,_ those fucking green eyes,_ Roxas mentally breathed. Why was it that he just couldn't look away, why was it that to delve into those intoxicating eyes always meant to surrender all independent will? Roxas wasn't even aware that he was gaping at Seifer that moment, but something he _was_ painfully aware of was the fact that Seifer – and his kisses, and touches, and... _oh God, let's not remember that_ – was proving too intoxicating to resist.

"That was your first kiss, wasn't it?" Seifer asked.

Roxas narrowed his eyes. "So what if it was?"

"You weren't bad," Seifer said, grinning at Roxas. "For a newbie, not too bad. And anyway, what you lacked in skill, you made up with... _enthusiasm_."

Roxas's eyes widened as another wave of shame coursed through his body. "Stop... it."

Seifer smirked and then he did the one thing he'd made a habit of since yesterday – and Roxas noticed with dismay that it _still_ hadn't lost its effect on him. He invaded his private space and with each inch he crossed he brought the memory of what they'd just done right along with him.

"I'll stop all right, little one," he whispered, close enough for his smell, body heat and aura to once again invade all of Roxas's senses. Awful bandits they were, eagerly smuggling their way back into Roxas's body, then swiftly commencing to do what they so excelled at - breaking down his defenses and rational thought. "I'll stop," Seifer repeated, "if you go back to class like the good, obedient little boy you are and announce our fight today to your friends and classmates."

Roxas backed off, bringing some distance between their bodies. "Fine!" he spat, "fine, I'll do it."

The smaller boy walked toward the door, unlocked it and opened it, all the while half-expecting Seifer to stop him and do unspeakable things to him. Roxas heaved a long sigh when the coolness of the school hallway wrapped itself around his body. What that sigh had been motivated by – fear? Relief? Frustration... or even disappointment? - he didn't know, and didn't care to examine. He could feel Seifer's presence behind him, following him as he made his way to the classroom.

One thought was gnawing away at him, and while he was at first reluctant to acknowledge it, when he finally did dedicate his attention to the thought, it proved interesting enough to make him stop in his tracks. His face a composition of confusion, his eyes caught Seifer's and when the usual shiver caused by the intensity of Seifer's eyes had passed, he asked, "why did you..._ kiss_ me?" It was hard to press the word out of his lips, and even harder was it to acknowledge to himself that yes, he had indeed just kissed Seifer, and had probably gone complete bonkers in the process. Pushing away the memories that were all too eager to sweep away his train of rational thought, he put on an expectant look.

When the blonde didn't answer immediately, he continued, "I already agreed to do this before that all happened, remember?" He narrowed his eyes, recalling clearly now how he had muttered his okay right before Seifer had forced himself on Roxas. "You couldn't have kissed me in order to make me do what I'm about to do. So, why? Did you... actually _want _to kiss me?"

For perhaps the first time since their acquaintances, Seifer looked caught off-guard, a look that flooded Roxas with sweet, sweet superiority. The smaller boy cocked his eyebrows, crossed his arms before his chest and sent him the most challenging look he could muster. A smirk crawled onto his face. "You wanted to kiss me, huh?"

Seifer finally met his eyes, having regained his composure. A sly smile was playing around his thin lips. "Why wouldn't I want to kiss you?" His voice was low, intimate- and the superiority Roxas had felt seeped out of him as quickly as it had come, rendering him unable to do anything but staring at Seifer while fighting an array of memories flooding his brain.

He shook his head and could almost envision how the impure thoughts dropped out of his head one by one, to be left on the floor where they belonged, writhing and wriggling and dissolving in their own rot. He stepped onto his thoughts, crushing them under his heels, and then walked to the classroom, neither looking at Seifer again nor giving him another chance to talk to him. He opened the door to the classroom, revealing the world he'd always known behind it – a bright world full of friends, teachers boring lectures and the faint stench of the paint on their new desks. A world where people like Seifer didn't have a place – yes, weren't even worth any consideration, any thought. He stepped back into this world, his chest expanding in a great draw of breath as all eyes returned to train on him. Expectation, confusion, anticipation – all of those emotions were hurled at him as he took center stage. A goofy smiled crept up his face before he could stop it; his hands started to fiddle with the front of his t-shirt.

The teacher who had been writing something on the blackboard put down her chalk and turned to look expectantly at Roxas. Cerulean eyes leapt from the teacher to Hayner, to Olette and Pence, all of whom were regarding him out of wide eyes. Affection and worry so evident on their faces, he felt his heart call out to his friends, twisting and turning in his chest in an effort to break loose. He swallowed, trying to find the thread in his brain that would trigger the inevitable.

"The Sandlot, 7 PM... tonight," Roxas mumbled. "Seifer and me will fight. If you'd like to come and watch... you're free to do so."

At the mention of the word, voices broke loose all around him, hurling him into a malestrom of fragments of speech, cries, screams and confusion. Through all of it, his eyes searched for the teacher and flexed upon her.

"And, Miss Heartilly," he pressed out and with every word that followed his voice got fainter and fainter, weaker and weaker. "I'm not feeling so well right now, so if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading home now."

He didn't even wait for a reply from the teacher. He didn't have to – even if she had threatened to expel him if he left right now, he wouldn't have been able to make himself care. He only knew he couldn't stay, only knew the confusion in his brain was starting to lame it, only knew the way his body and mind ached could only be remedied by wallowing in self-pity within the privacy of his own home. Thus, he turned around without another word and left.

Left, while dozens of eyes were boring themselves into his backside. Left, while the rest of class was questioning his sanity and Hayner's heart called out to him in small, painful wails.

Left, while Seifer's smug laughter reverberated in his ears, over and over again.

--**tbc**

* * *

**Author's Notes:** God, I'm a pervert. Strangely, I don't mind.


	6. Cries of the Butterfly

**Author's Notes:** I'm so proud of myself like you wouldn't _believe_! Finally I didn't take months upon months to make a little update and I managed to churn this chapter out in a timely fashion (well, for my standards, anyway :)).

This chapter is more of an interlude to set up the finale (and ended up embarrassingly long and embarrassingly exhaustive considering that ; ).

In other breaking news: I'm currently in the early planning stages of a _sequel_ to this story which I may or may not end up actually writing. More details later. :)

--

_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 6: Cries of the Butterfly**_

--

The steps Roxas took up to where Seifer was standing were so heavy he was mentally crawling, dragging his nose along the dirty street as he went. Even his heart was somersaulting inside what felt like his stomach, as though trying to escape from that great, overwhelming pressure descending down upon it. He looked at the faces as he walked up toward the battle ground - half of the school had come and the looks he was receiving ranged all the way from hateful to hopeful. Some of his fellow students gave him thumb-ups, others smiled and others still pointed their fingers towards their head in what was a universal gesture of questioning someone's sanity.

Yeah, sanity. Supplies had been sparse the last couple of days, and it wasn't looking like he'd receive another shipment any time soon. He could use some of it himself right about now.

Shaking his head at himself, he walked on, then noticed a girl from class he had once had a crush on - the _only_ crush he'd ever had in his short teenage life. Tall, blonde and named Manila, she was standing there, alongside the other by-watchers, imposing and ethereal in her beauty and blondeness. She was waving at Roxas with that petite little hand Roxas had once - a lifetime ago - so longed to hold. Wasn't it ironic that the very moment he let go off her, as soon as it was not _her_ anymore that filled his heart with desire... that it would be just _then_ that she would start acknowledging his existence? Manila was smiling reassuringly, but the people he _really_ wanted to smile at him, reassure him, calm and _be there_ for him... weren't.

Well, it's not like he'd expected anything less, Roxas told himself even as the loneliness started to engulf his heart and have it a first squeeze. He had known that Seifer would know better than let Hayner, Olette and Pence come and watch, that he would find ways to discreetly block them from attending the fight.

He walked on, his steps gaining in weight still the farther he proceeded, passing face upon face. When he crawled past Fujin and Raijin, they raised their hands to their throats and made simultaneous slitting movements. The message was clear.

He passed them, dragged his body, which by this point was almost paralyzed with fear, up toward the battle stage set up in the middle of the Sandlot. Roxas was not surprised to see that Seifer had prepared everything – so meticulously, in fact, that the sandy-haired boy could not help but summon up the mental image of Seifer standing atop his throne, commandeering his mindlessly obedient followers to carry out every wish he cared to make. He could see torches lightening the surroundings of the Sandlot; spotted the dozens -or was it _hund__ed__rs_? - of ecstatic faces in the audience closing in on him, pressing themselves closer to the stage; was able to see the little magician Vivi bustling about busily and talking to Seifer, apparently having been assigned the role of a referee. Even Seifer himself had been put together with great care: he wore satin pants of faint but oh-so-fitting glamour; his abdominal muscles bared and flexing underneath that honey skin. Sharply cut collarbones ran down forever until they met with and swiftly hid under the fabric of his black top. He wasn't wearing a trench coat tonight. The muscles, smoothly running like veins along his sun-kissed arms, were flexed, his fist tightened around the staff he had brought. The very weapon Seifer meant to defeat him with, that was supposed to bend his bones as well as bruise his soul.

Swallowing, the smaller boy gripped his own staff tighter; white knuckles protruding like snow-covered hills against sandy fields; brilliant drops of sweat flowing down along the length of the staff. When Roxas met Seifer's eyes and saw the amusement paired with superiority spelled all across it, he couldn't help but grit his teeth in a heady mix of anger and the first thunders of anger.

"What are you looking at?!" Roxas couldn't help but spit, drawing the eyes of the audience onto him, combining the force of their surprise. Nobody had expected Roxas to break the silence first.

Eyes sped back over to Seifer, nudging themselves into every corner of his face. "Looking at the guy who's going to kneel in front of me in about five minutes," Seifer answered, hurling his smirk which intensified the bite of his words right along with them.

Roxas felt the eggs the foreboding of anger had hidden inside his stomach hatching, sending its fiery messengers along his veins. Roxas took the last couple of steps that had separated him from the battleground, the ground soft underneath his soles as he proceeded toward his opponent. With each step he took, he felt the confidence he'd been so sorely lacking lending strength to his stride, its returning force enough to make him hold his head high and his back straight as Seifer got bigger and more imposing with each step that brought him closer. A shiver ran through his skinny teenage body as he felt the breeze passing over his exposed skin. Today he had worn a crimson red tank-top for maximum flexibility, surrendering his bare arms and shoulders to the evening air. It wasn't until he was mere feet away from his opponent that every inch of exposed skin began to burn and tingle from the proximity to he whom he feared and admired and loved and hated.

"So nice of you to come," Seifer said, his voice dripping with cruelty.

"Is it? I must have missed the part where I had much of a choice in the matter."

Seifer snickered. "I trust you had a lovely day, _Roxas_."

* * *

When the doorbell rang, Roxas immediately knew who it was. It wouldn't have been a lie to say he had been waiting, because even though he hadn't given the impression of waiting as he had frantically, almost desperately beat away at the punching bag hung up on his room, every moment that had ticked past had been accompanied by the memory of the person he was expecting lurking just out of reach of his immediate consciousness.

Stopping his work-out, Roxas listened to the door being opened by his mother and heard muffled voices in the hallway. Although it came to no surprise that the voice he heard belonged exactly to he whom he'd been waiting for, it didn't stop the sound from causing Roxas to wince.

Grabbing a towel and cleansing his face of the pearls of sweat that his pale skin was glistening and sparkling with, Roxas, his stomach convulsing in a mixture of dread and anticipation, went to open the door that led out into the hallway. It was with quiet, yet determined steps – its confidence belied only by his head hung low and his eyes averted in a display of shame – that Roxas stepped closer to Hayner until he could have reached out his hand and touched him - something he'd done hundreds, thousands of times, yet right now the mere _thought_ of running his hands over that familiar, slightly-tanned skin refereed his heart into a terrified gallop.

"Your friend is here to see you," his mother said unnecessarily, flipping her black hair over her shoulder. "Hello, Hayner. Long time no see. Everything fine with you and your mother? I haven't seen her in a long time, I was almost wondering if she fell ill."

"Hello, Mrs. Lulu," Hayner answered. The forced smile he had plastered across his face was borderline-painful to look at. "I'm fine, and so is my family. Thanks for asking. Actually, my mother is a little busy these days since she took up a new hobby, oil paintings. I can tell her to call you when she has time if you'd like me to."

Lulu nodded, but Roxas could tell she wasn't in the least bit interested, was in fact not very happy with Hayner dropping by, and it looked like she briefly considered saying something, but then her heavily lipsticked mouth shut, her bony shoulders shrugged and she turned around to wander down the way to the living room. "You two have a nice talk," she called just before she shut the door behind her, cutting her existence off the realm of consciousness of both teenage boys.

Roxas and Hayner regarded each other out of eyes that wanted to say so much, but were held back by mouths who couldn't say a thing. It was Hayner who found his voice first, and even though what he said was so simple, it didn't fail to shake the smaller boy.

"Hi, Roxas," he said.

Roxas shifted his weight from one foot to the other while his eyes darted wildly across Hayner's face like a chased rabbit across a field. Eventually, the sandy-haired boy drew his eyes to the floor. "Hi, Hayner," he greeted, his voice sounding stilted and foreign even to himself. Then, he raised his head, meeting those eyes he had looked into so many thousands of times, yet it felt like he was seeing them for the first time.

"I... I knew you would come."

"You know me well, then," Hayner said, a small smile tainted with sadness and the faint feeling of loss melting his face, "but then again, we've known each other for a long time. Since that day you got adopted, and you were too scared to talk to anyone, including Lulu. How long has it been now? 10 years? For some reason, you liked me. You were scared of everyone but me." He trailed off, his eyes searching Roxas's face. "Remember?"

The memory stung, so he pushed it away with one broad mental sweep, blinking as he did so.

"I remember," he said, shaking his head as though physically trying to rid himself of the memories.

Upon coming home from school that day, he had discarded his school stuff, grumbled a dismissive greeting to his mother and locked himself into his room, where he had spent the past couple of hours dealing with the all-consuming _rage_ that had taken possession of his body in violent spurts. Whenever the overwhelming rage had managed to take possession of his limbs and mind alike, he had worked out until the exertion lamed his limbs, banged his head against the wall or paced along the length of his room until it felt like the monotony of the room coupled with the roaring chaos in his head would derive him of that last bit of sanity he was clinging on to.

Looking at Hayner, though, the rage was gone, and in its stead guilt had broken loose and was speeding through his body like wild horses across a prairie.

Roxas swallowed. "Let's go to my bedroom, then."

Hayner's eyes widened. "Your _bedroom_?" A beat. "Oh. Oh, sure. Right. Your mom is in the living room, and to talk in private we need to go somewhere that's... private, so...I mean, yeah. Let's go."

Embarrassed, Hayner stalked ahead of him, opening the door to Roxas's room and, once there, stood rooted to his spot, his back perfectly erected. Roxas quietly closed the door behind them, but as soon as he did, the feeling of claustrophobia that followed was enough for quick spurts of panic to try to crawl up his throat. He swallowed, suddenly remembering that he'd been working out and feeling a bite of embarrassment at his current attire – messy, wet hair, tank top clutching to his skinny body, the faint smell of sweat sheathing his skin like a cocoon.

"Sorry," Roxas, "I was just working out..."

"I can see – and _smell_ – that," Hayner answered, winking, flashes of his usual self re-surfacing.

"Hey," Roxas protested, "my sweat smells sweet."

"Oh, sure does. About as sweet as sour milk," Hayner teased.

Roxas couldn't help but smile at the comfortable atmosphere, as carefree as it had always been – but just a beat later, Hayner's handsome face darkened again, and with the darkness taking possession of his features the clammy fist that had wrapped itself around Roxas's heart before came rushing forward once more. The atmosphere was thick and heavy; their breathing irregular; their eyes darting over each other's faces.

Roxas knew it was his turn to steer the conversation to where it needed to go. "You know, Hayner," he started, his tongue as heavy as though he was carrying bricks in his mouth, "I'm... sorry."

"I'm sure you know why I'm here," Hayner said and it was only then that Roxas realized that that expression etched deeply into Hayner's face, previously misinterpreted as anger, was in fact nothing but worry and genuine fear for his well-being. Deep sadness clouded Hayner's eyes. "Roxas, I beg you. Don't do this."

Roxas opened his mouth to say something, but only a small wheeze came out. Embarrassed, he turned his back to Hayner, studying the floor, racking his brain for an answer – _any_ answer – he could give to soothe the other boy's worry.

All thoughts tumbled out of his brain as he felt Hayner's arms wrapping themselves around his body from behind without warning, felt Hayner's face nuzzle his neck. The blonde's hot breath against the crane of his neck sent shiver down Roxas's sweat-drenched spine while his eyes widened and his adam's apple pounded against the flushed skin of his neck as though it was a trapped animal.

Hayner's body was so warm, non-threatening and gentle; as different from Seifer as sunshine to a snow storm. Hayner was the teddy bear, Seifer the gremlin lurking in the shadows and licking its razor-sharp teeth; unfortunately, right then and there it may have been the teddy bear Roxas felt he could deal with less, whose affections were more crushing than the overt aggression of the gremlin.

"Roxas." Hayner's breath erected his nipples as it swept over the glistening surface of Roxas's skin. "Please don't go. What would Olette and Pence... what would _I _do without you?" Hayner's voice hitched in his throat, and Roxas felt so much affection for the other boy it almost physically hurt. "You know this is a bad idea, you just _know_. Seifer is evil. Today, when he dragged you away, I realized what he was - a disease out to get us. He's a disease. He doesn't care about destroying you – no, actually, we both know that destroying you is _exactly_ what he wants." He paused, taking deep breaths; they came right out of his body and sped over Roxas's sweaty body in frantic sweeps. "How do you think you can win, Roxas? You can't. You _know_ that. What is Seifer, like four inches taller than you? Thirty or fourty pounds heavier than your skinny ass? About twice as experienced at fighting as you are? When was the last time you even fought, Roxas? You _know_ you're not a fighter. It's not in your nature."

_"Do you really not know how special you are...?" _Seifer, their gazes locked, whispered. _"Do you really not know how special you are...?"_

Roxas vehemently shook his head. The voice that had echoing from all sides at once vanished; but the feeling it had ignited inside Roxas remained.

The sandy-haired boy raised his chin and turned around, facing Hayner. "Is it not?" he asked, with an edge of challenge in his voice. "Are you sure it's not? Are you absolutey, one-hundred-percent sure that I'm not a fighter? And if so, can you tell me what my nature _is_, Hayner? I'm just the cute kid from next door with the mad skateboarding skills? The kid who can never get anything right, has no dreams, no talents that are worth half a munny and fucked up the last - and only - time he had a crush on a girl and instead of slicing her heart with the arrow of love accidentally sliced her favourite blouse with his pen, and spilled ink on it to boot?"

He could see Hayner stiffen. "You're not just the cute kid from next door with the mad skateboarding skills. You're the cute kid from next door with the mad skateboarding skills who's my _friend_ and who means the _world_ to me." He paused, his grip loosening around Roxas's body. "But I suppose that's not enough. Perhaps it never _was_ enough for you."

Roxas shut his eyes so tightly he started to see lights and shapes blooming out of the black seed of his vision. "I'm sorry," he whispered. This time, it was he who initiated the hug, and he stepped forward, embracing the taller boy, buring his face into his dear friend's collarbone.

He could feel Hayner stiffing against his hug, a shiver going through him; then, the taller blonde's arms wrapped themselves around Roxas's smaller frame, crushing Roxas against his chest. "Fine," Hayner said, disappointment evident in his voice, yet never once jeapordizing the dominance of the warmth and affection in his voice, "I get it. You know, Roxas, if you want to pick up fighting and hanging with these guys, I can support you. But, be rational about this - now is not the time. Today it would be nothing short of _suicide_. What's the point of entering a match you have no chance of winning?"

Roxas pressed his face against Hayner's body tightly, breathing in the familiar scent.

"What if, rather than not losing the match, not losing _yourself_ was more important?"

The words hung in the air after they'd been spoken; an almost corporeal sense of melancholy and sadness enveloping both teenagers as they stood there, hugging. Hayner was at a loss for a reply; his silence was heavy, more horrible than anything he could have said.

It was Roxas who shooed away the words levitating in the air with what he said next, "I needed you today. Today, when Seifer followed me outside." His voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears. "But I think we both knew you it was something I needed to deal with myself. You knew it, didn't you? You could feel it wasn't your business but entirely mine. That's why you didn't come to my rescue. It must have been hard for you not to."

"You know me well."

Roxas smiled faintly. "Of course I do. I know you better than I'll ever know myself." His smile dropped. "And you know me, too. You could tell today's argument was all my problem. You could feel it wasn't yours to solve. Just as tonight's fight is something I have to deal with myself." He struggled a little against Hayner's arms, attempting to free himself, but Hayner didn't let him go, did in fact crush him even closer against his chest. Roxas stopped struggling, his heart so heavy it threatened to fall down to his knees.

Although Hayner didn't give way to his struggles, at no point did the contact with his friend's body ever feel threatening, nor did he feel the demand that he could feel every action of Seifer's motivated by. Neither could he feel evil and contempt seeping through his clothes and into his veins like he could when Seifer's arms were around him.

Hayner felt so... _right._

And at the same time, not right at all.

Roxas said in a soft voice, "It's my business and responsibility, and _only_ mine. No matter how much we may wish it wasn't. No matter how much you may wish you could help me, you really can't. It is my personal challenge, _my_ personal quest."

There again, that word. Mine. My. I. Me.

Roxas.

Me, Roxas.

Mine, mine, _mine_.

It was starting to get more familiar. The worst bite of the unfamiliar had waned, replaced by a feeling of mild irritation at the word.

Roxas closed his eyes at what he was going to say next. His could hear his own heart thundering away in his ears as he slowly looked up, flexing his eyes upon Hayner's, delving into the familiar depths of those eyes that never once looked at him with anything other than genuine affection and good-will. He had looked into those eyes hundreds, _thousands_ of times before - but right then, looking into them was the single hardest it had ever been.

He opened his words in the words came out in hurry, and after, Roxas didn't know why he had said them. Had he really needed to relieve himself from that awful secret? Had he felt he had betrayed Hayner and was consumed by guilt? Perhaps he had said it to prove a point? Had he gone insane? Was he actually starting to... see Seifer in a different light? He didn't know and it wasn't until much later that he realized it had been a little of all these reasons.

"Seifer kissed me," Roxas said.

* * *

"How my day was is any of your business in _what_ alternate universe?" Roxas muttered.

Seifer's laughter barked through Roxas's bones. "I like it when you're being fierce." Then, in a whisper, so that nobody in the gawking crowd could hear them, "it's sexy."

Roxas rolles his eyes, despite the fact that his heart was thundering in his ears, that his heart was beating away so fast in his chest he could feel his skin tingle. "Now you just sound some kind of old subway pervert that puts his hands down your pants while you're being sandwiched between sweaty bodies."

Seifer laughed. "I see that the fear has loosened your tongue. That's good." He grinned. "It's going to be more fun now."

The sound of Seifer's laughter ripped through Roxas's body all the way into the most well-hidden niches of his being. He saw Seifer cross his arms over his chest and felt his attention drawn to the muscles of his chest sneaking out of the top of his shirt even as the fear coursing through his body was whispering recommendations to run and hide down his spine in a voice far more seductive than any other.

He knew he couldn't run. He knew he couldn't hide. Furthermore, even as the core of his earlier resolution to destroy the blonde before him was starting to crumble like a wall whose tiles had been glued together with used chewing gum, he knew that he physically _couldn't_ run just as much as he knew he wouldn't ever _allow_ himself to.

Hayner's familiar figure materialized in front of him, floating in the air, the widened eyes admist that face he had grown to love over more than ten years gaping at him as though they were seeing him for the first time.

_"He what? He __**kissed**__ you?"_ Hayner's voice reverberated through his head. On Hayner's face, the pain was warring with the confusion while the accusation stood beside, silently pouring itself into Roxas and piercing right through his heart.

And then, his own answer played in his head. _"Yeah... I don't know exactly how it happened, but it happened. He kissed me. I'm sorry, Hayner. I'm sorry my first kiss..." _Roxas could remember his own insecurity, the emotion and hurt in his voice, _"I'm sorry that.. it wasn't with you. So sorry."_

His voice was crackly to him, as though it had been recorded; perhaps, recorded by that godforsaken voice-recorder Seifer had used to blackmail him with, the little silver deceive that took the strange little story that had been unfolding before him up until that point and painted it black with rotten evil. The floating Hayner in front of him gaped, and while the accusation came in as a close second, Roxas knew he would never forget the raw _pain_ he could see on Hayner's face as the single most destructive emotion he had ever had to witness there.

Roxas remembered himself placing one hand on Hayner's shoulder, looking deeply into his eyes, then, slowly, moving forward, pressing his lips against Hayner's. The kiss was short and sweet, motivated by platonic love, derived of all lust - again, everything the kiss shared with Seifer _hadn't_ been. _"I'm sorry. At least my second kiss was with you,"_ his own voice repeated in his head. Looking into Hayner's eyes, both of them had known that it had been both their first _and_ their last kiss.

Seifer moved and it caused the memory of Hayner to disappear and scatter, some of the memory sneaking back into his heart where it belonged and Roxas would fight hard to protect. Seifer was walking toward him and Roxas's body snapped into fighter position immediately, holding his staff tighter to himself, his eyes speeding over Seifer's body like a scared animal.

"Easy, easy, Roxas," Seifer laughed, obviously amused by Roxas's open display of fear. "I'm not going to start attacking you just yet. I'm going to explain the rules to you. Vivi, step forward."

The little black mage bowed, his oversized hat dipping forward as he did so. It was cute, and if Roxas hadn't felt like he was going to die, he may even have noticed how cute the little mage was - but as it was, all Roxas could really do was stare at the object of his hatred.

_**Only**__ hatred, Roxas?_

Roxas shook his head. Hard.

Vivi's voice - quiet, timid, high - snapped him out his dark broodings. "The rules are as follows. It will be a single-round battle which will go on for as long as it has to. Either player can end the battle by discarding his weapon, falling to his knees in front of the winner and saying "stop", or the battle comes to a default end caused by the death of either contestant. There are no other ways to end the battle." Roxas's stomach protested at the word _death_ in unity with the color draining from his face. His faint dust of freckles stood stark against his pale skin. "During the battle, any fighting technique is allowed. You may use any item you have brought to the battle grounds. The only rule you must adhere to is that you may not ask a third party to enter the battle and fight on your behalf." Vivi nodded, turning to Roxas and training his eerie yellow eyes on the skinny boy. "Any questions?"

Roxas grit his teeth together, his eyes ramming themselves into those sucking pools of brilliant green, their beauty only marred by the evil lurking just underneath. "My only question," Roxas pressed out, willing his voice not to quiver, "is when does this finally _start_?"

Seifer smirked again - that oh-so-manly, oh-so-superior smirk of his, the very one that was tracking Roxas down, haunting him, had come close to _possessing_ him on more than one occasion - came forward to Roxas, and, simultaneous to extending his hand for a handshake, pushed his aura into Roxas like a truck crushing into helpless child forcefully enough to make Roxas start panting.

The smaller boy studied the hand suspiciously, then raised his eyes to meet Seifer's. His insides stirred as he met the brilliant depths of his opponent's eyes - why, oh why, couldn't he get this feeling when looking into _Hayner's_ eyes? Why, oh why, was it only _Seifer_ who could make him feel this way? Why was it that he couldn't even _name_ what it was? - but he bit back any reaction as he slowly took Seifer's hand. The pressure from the taller boy's hand was immediate and crushing and Roxas did his best not to flinch at the strength the other blonde administered to his handshake. Instead, he replied with as much strength as he could muster, which, even Roxas had to admit with dismay, was laughable in direct comparison to Seifer's strength. This battle, was it really David vs. Goliath? Was it really as hopeless a mission as jumping off of their beds hoping they'd grow wings and fly as he and Hayner used to do when they were seven? Was it really suicide, as Hayner had put it?

_Hayner,_ a voice in Roxas's head called, summoning a mental replica of Hayner; Hayner with the same shiny eyes; Hayner with the tears that had started to gather at the corner of his large, brown eyes. Hayner who had stared at him while the ghost of their brief kiss had still been lingering on their lips. He had looked at him for a good, long while, then had turned around with a sigh, and Roxas's heart had broken for just a second, thinking that Hayner was going to leave, was going to leave him _alone_, was really going to leave him all for Seifer to take and to destroy - but then Hayner turned around again, a staff presented on his outstretched arms. The same wooden staff he had always had, the same staff that Roxas had thought Hayner would never let anyone else even so much as touch.

_"I had a feeling you wouldn't let yourself be convinced. You're so stubborn. Always have been."_ His voice... so sad. _"So I brought this. I want you to have it for the fight today__. I have a feeling that Seifer won't allow me to come and watch. I'll try to sneak in, but I can't make any promises." _Roxas had been reluctant to take it - how _could_ he, when he had just so thoroughly disappointed Hayner, so thoroughly disappointed _himself_? - but Hayner had impatiently thrown it into his arm, giving him no choice but to accept the weapon. _"You still have no chance in hell of beating Seifer, but maybe through this weapon I can support you. I've had it for a long time. At the time I bought it, it was the best model on the market - now it may not be, but it sure beats you own battered one. So take it. Take it or I'll get so mad I start to cry right here and now, and I mean it, too."_He paused. "_And about what you said before.. you were right. I __**could**__ feel that whatever twisted relationship you shared with Seifer, it was som__ething only you could understand. I knew it... but it didn't stop me from trying to talk you out of embarking on such an impossible mission. I give up now. I can tell you have no other choice, Roxas. So at least do your best. Kick his ass, Roxas!"_

Roxas had gaped at Hayner out of wide eyes, his heart in his chest expanding until he thought he couldn't breathe. Frantically, he had searched his brain for something - _anything_ - to say, but all he had come up with was, _"thank you. Thank you so much. You're my best friend, and you always will be. Thank you."__  
__  
"Yeah, Roxas. I'll be your friend." _Hayner had answered. Roxas had seen the sadness lurking just underneath that optimistic expression on Hayner's face, but he was given no more time to reminiscence._  
__  
_Seifer's voice cut right through his mental picture of himself and Hayner, shredding up the memory as though it was a piece of paper and then discarding it carelessly on the ground. "What are you day-dreaming about, chicken-wuss?"

Roxas blinked, his eyes returning to flex upon Seifer's. The rage was back, coursing through Roxas's body, setting it on fire. He could not lose - he _would_ not lose. The only way to break Seifer's hold over him was to break _him_; after all, the only way to get freedom was to kill your slave master.

"Remember what you said when you blackmailed me in front of Mrs. Loz's house?" he pressed out from in between clenched teeth. "Do you remember? You said that I had to lose this battle and that you had something in store for me during the battle. That there was something you would make me do." Roxas watched Seifer nod, then continued with a harsh cut of his hand through the air, "well, _**screw that**_."

Even Seifer seemed surprised at the harshness in Roxas's voice and while he opened his mouth to reply, Roxas cut him off again, his voice just as angry and emotional as before, "I'm fighting to win, Seifer. And it's not going to be as easy as you think. I'm going to fight _for_ my life and _against _your grip over it. I know you're proud, Seifer. If I win this, I demand you disappear out of my life. Feel free to play that tape to my friends or whatever - I know now that they will forgive me. I have new confidence in my friends. If I win this, it's _over_. You will let me free. You will _have_ to."

The first droplets of joy landed on Roxas's soul as he watched Seifer's perfect exterior crumble at the sudden revolution, saw the first hints of anger surfacing on his face and tenseness freezing his body.

"Are you out of your mind thinking you can beat me in a one-on-one match?" Seifer snapped.

"Maybe," Roxas admitted. "But you shouldn't underestimate me that much. It just may come to bite you in the ass very soon if you do."

It was his responsibility to stand up to Seifer, to safe the life he had built and Seifer was threatening to ruin, to grasp to the threads of normalcy that he had lost sight of. He was scared shitless, wanted to scream and cry at the same time, but he knew he had to.

He snapped back into fighter position and nodded to Vivi. "Give us the signal. Let's get this thing started."

Vivi nodded and, shadowed by the collected gasp of the crowd surrounding the battle stage, the little black mage raised his arm. Three fingers."One," Vivi announced.

Excitement was boiling inside Seifer's insides at the sight of Roxas's vehemence and a feeling not completely unlike sexual arousal was tickling him as he took in the little boys' face; eyes mercilessly revealing an ongoing battle between defiance and fear; full lips - _lips he had kissed_ - set into a tight, nervous line. The transformation going on in front of his eyes was both amazing and wonderful - in just a day, the most timid boy at school who had blushed at the sight of cleavages and rude messages scribbled on the walls of school bathrooms had turned into a boy ready to stand up and fight for his life. A boy who was ever getting closer to finding out who he _truly_ was.

One black finger disappeared. "Two."

Electric blood was shooting through the veins of Roxas's body, making him high with the fear and the thrill and the excitement. It was one last time that he, in one horrible flash, considered turning on his heel and running as fast as his shivering legs would take him, but he bit down on his tongue so hard quick flashes of pain shot through him, muffling and killing the siren in his head. In just a second he was going to fight Seifer and Roxas wanted to hold onto this one second forever.

But of course, the moment you think you never want something to end is precisely the moment it does.

"Three!" Vivi called and in a flurry of colors, Seifer attacked.

--**tbc**

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**Author's Notes:** My God, the drama, the _**drama**_**!!** Excuse me while I go watch some _My Little Pony_ on youtube to recover from this.

**Review Button:** FEED ME!!


	7. The End of Every Story

_**Author's Notes: **_Yes! Yes, yes, yes, _another _update! I'm so happy that my muse has finally decided to stop rebelling against me and that this story is actually (almost) _complete_ right now. With only the epilogue left to be written, this should be finished before I know it.

For the people who were requesting more Seifer x Roxas interaction, I hope you are pleased! This chapter is pretty much nothing but SxR, after all. ;) Honestly, I don't understand why this pairing is so unpopular, I thought it made perfect sense (but, that may just be because I'm a rabid Final Fantasy VIII fan girl combined with me being one of those irrational people who keep believing that Seifer bullying someone really means that he is attracted to them). When I played through the epilogue and watched Seifer attacking Roxas in what was almost involuntary viciousness, I immediately believed that Roxas was triggering something inside Seifer that he himself was uncomfortable with. Well, then again... maybe it's just me.

In any case, thank you for reading and if you are interested, I am going to post the first chapter of a new story (this time AkuRoku) hopefully within the next few days. If you liked The End Of Every Story until to this point, I hope you will check out my new story as well once it's up.

Nothing left to babble on about except please review. :-)

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_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 7: The End of Every Story**_

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_**Chapter 7: The End of Every Story**_

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When Seifer's staff collided with Roxas's stomach, Roxas realized that no amount of mental preparation could ever have so much as _hoped_ to ready him for the pain the impact caused. It started in his stomach, then, like a blizzard left loose, shot through the entirety of his slight teenage body. It buzzed along his nerve endings as well as blackened his vision.

It was with an _"umph"_ sound that the blonde's behind crashed into the sandy ground; the pain up his butt from the heavy fall immediate, mingling with the pain throbbing in his stomach. However, there was no time for Roxas to nurse his aching body parts, as he, with one heart-wrenching gaze up the statuesque figure of his opponent, realized that said rival was about to land another hit - and that he was aiming for his _face_.

Seifer's staff made a hissing sound as it whirled through the air, then a soft one as it missed Roxas's lithe form and instead hit the ground a second after Roxas had rolled out of the way and erected himself onto shaky legs. Roxas was standing there, panting, one hand clutching his stomach while the other was busy making sure he wasn't going to drop his weapon and staring at Seifer out of eyes that made no secret of the almost laming fear he was experiencing.

Seifer laughed and the sound rattled through every niche of Roxas's body. He saw the smirk on Seifer's face splitting his handsome face, then, with one motion that Roxas's eyes had trouble following, Seifer launched another attack. Fortunately for Roxas, while his eyes hadn't been quick enough, his reflexes had; he found himself raising his own staff - _Hayner's staff,_ he reminded himself - and with the dull sound of wood clashing each other, their staffs collided. The force behind the hit had been no less powerful than the one behind the first - a laming pain shot up his arms at the impact - but, for reasons that Roxas himself was in the dark about, he managed to hold off the attack. While he was clumsily tumbling backwards, dodging another one of Seifer's blows, he distantly heard the crowd screaming, cheering; among the cheers he could hear his own name, heard fear and triumph binding into what reached Roxas as a plethora of tumult.

A sparkle in Seifer's eyes. Sharp pain shot up Roxas's arms and raced into his shoulders as he parried the next hit, jumped two steps back, then dodged the horizontal slash that Seifer drilled the air with. Sharp panic was writhing inside Roxas, sneaking its way up into his throat and nesting there. Fear demons were nibbling at his intestines, taking off chunks larger than they could swallow with every bite.

Another hit, racing toward his face like an arrow. He dodged it by stepping back yet again seconds before he parried another slash, his face contorting into a mask of pain as the now familiar sting dashed up the length of his arm and tackled his aching shoulders. Another upward hit just barely missed him, passing by so close to his face Roxas could smell the wood, could feel the air whipping his face.

Hit for hit, Seifer closed in on him, ever refusing to let him get even one hit in edgewise, forcing him ever closer to the edge of the battle-ground. Sweat had started to build on Roxas's body and was pearling on his temples, wetting his hands; his heartbeat was beating so furiously his whole body was vibrating in cruel harmony with the pounds; the dread and fear had turned into a corporeal entity that was clogging his throat.

"Getting tired already?" Seifer taunted. "Oh, little R, but we're just getting started."

There it was. The truest form of cruelty flashing across Seifer's face; then the realization Seifer was going to hit him pressed against the back of Roxas's eyes like a burning light bulb. It was in slow-motion that the following transpired - Seifer's body twisting as he gathered the strength he would bless this hit with, then the wooden staff coming toward Roxas slowly, every so slowly, frame-by-frame as though a slide show of impending doom. Adrenaline twisted through Roxas veins and his arms raised to meet the blow and his strength centralized in his legs as he spread them to prepare for the blow and -

- he met Seifer's blow in mid-swing and a long tremble shook his entire body as the world seemed to come to a complete halt.

And then, their bodies working so hard at keeping their balance, to not fall over from the sudden impact - their feet firmly rooted to their spots, toes digging into the soft ground underneath, the muscles in their legs slices of tension - neither moved, neither even _blinked _as for one perfect, still moment only, they stood there staring at each other.

To Roxas, the surroundings melted away in that moment; cheers from the crowds nothing but insignificant clamor fading out slowly, like the siren of a passing police car being sucked away once it passed. In reality, the moment could not have lasted for more than a second, but to Roxas it seemed like a minute, an hour even.

_Green. _The green of the wave-tossed seas and _just_ as deep.

He noticed with disgust that his glare had been rubbing itself against Seifer's like a willing body and another wave of hot shame coursed through him. Gritting his teeth in disgust with himself, he shook his head, then forced his eyes to flex upon the staff in his hands and to _remember_.

He remembered the day Hayner had bought that staff, the very staff that he was now holding on to as though he was a drowning man and it a safety rope. In Roxas's memory, it had been a good day, a beautiful day, but in retrospect he could not have told you whether the weather had been nice or even how his health had been at that time. Memory tended to omit information not deemed of sufficient importance, and so all Roxas could remember of that day was Hayner presenting the new staff at the usual spot, proudly announcing that he had spent all the money he had earned during the summer and the summer before and the summer _before_ to be able to buy this staff. Olette, Pence and himself had stared at Hayner out of plate-sized eyes that had drooled admiration and surprise, asking shyly if they could touch it, and then they had stood there, running their fingers over the fine wood and the well-drawn red and blue ornaments and it had been lovingly passed around like a newborn infant.

However, to be perfectly honest, there hadn't been anything special about the staff itself. It had looked like countless other staffs and it had felt just the same as Pence's staff when Roxas had taken a couple of experimental swings with the weapon in his hand. But yet, he and his friends alike had _known_ that it was special, that it deserved all the awe and loving care of a remarkable gemstone - because, rather than any inherent quality, it had been the staff's attributes blended with Hayner's own abilities, it had been Hayner's dreams and hard work and passion for the staff that made the staff so unique. And just like during that day all those years ago when his best friend had presented them the staff he had worked hard to buy and would always cherish, it wasn't the inherent strength of the staff itself that lent grace and determination to Roxas's movements but what the staff had been _made to be_ through a network of belief.

So Roxas's eyes danced back up to meet Seifer's and this time, the expression in Roxas's eyes no longer revealed fear nor anger; had, in place of those petty and troublesome emotions, given way to determination. He gripped his staff - Hayner's staff, his staff, _their_ staff - tighter as he released the next words.

"Hayner gave this staff to me, Seifer. _I will not be afraid any more_. I have his support and that of my friends within me right now; they love me, Seifer. Who loves you?"

Seifer's eyes narrowed; a scarlet fire deep inside them igniting, ravishing, feeding. "What?" Seifer hissed and for just one sweet moment that Roxas wished he could have hold onto, he felt like he really _could_ defeat Seifer, that he _could_ exploit all that weakness he suddenly saw presented to him like a buffet plate at a wedding, free for him to pluck apart however he pleased.

And then the moment was broken. Or, perhaps, rather than broken, it would have been more accurate to say it was sliced in halves with the precision of a scalpel when he felt Seifer pushing him away with one single, powerful thrust - power he in that moment knew he could never _hope_ to match - and he went scooting over the ground, trembling, tripping, catching his weight just before he was about to crash head-first into the sand. He snapped around to look at Seifer who was already close to him - _how had he closed the distance _**so **_**fast**__?_ - his staff now raised high. The expression he had been wearing like a mask since the start of the fight had sneaked its way back onto his face, only this time it had come accompanied by a tremble of anger.

"Where are your friends now, huh? How are they helping you now?"

The distance between their bodies was breached so fast that if it hadn't been for the fact that Roxas's body was running on pure adrenaline, would have run him right over like a truck a wooden hut. The next blow Roxas parried sent a tremor throughout the entirety of his body, _but what was it?_ There was no strength behind that hit? And then Roxas caught a fragment of Seifer grinning and Roxas's mind called uselessly, "_oh. __**Fuck**_" and it was quick, so cruelly quick. Seifer dropped his arm and then brought it up and the staff came racing toward Roxas in a crushing upper-cut. Roxas's head was snapped back to nearly breaking point as the weapon connected with his cheek and for the first time in his life, Roxas knew what it meant to see stars.

His body reeled off balance and he was flying through the air. His staff slipped out from in between his grasping fingers, thudding into the sand where Roxas would soon join it. Roxas had always loved this feeling of perfect weightlessness during a free fall, that one perfect moment in which nothing mattered - but just as it had the times before, it only lasted a fraction of a second. Roxas screamed as his head crashed against the ground but the scream was muffled and killed by the sand that hurried in a second after the fall. His chest convulsing horribly, he gagged and rolled onto his stomach - his head still spinning from the impact, his eyes watering, his stomach about to heave - spitting sand as he did so. Ocean blue eyes widened as the feeling of suffocation collected him into one crushing embrace and when he tore his eyes open all he could see standing amidst the darkness that was pressing closer was Seifer standing over him.

And Seifer looked so beautiful and horrible in his tallness and blondeness and the mere _power_ that encircled him that Roxas's mind was swept completely blank as he looked up at him.

Seifer crouched a little - his legs spread, arms resting on his knees, looking as cool and composed as he always had - and stared at the boy to his feet. "Look at your precious friends, now." Seifer indicated the lost staff to Roxas's right. "Over there, buried in the sand. Boo-hoo."

Roxas caressed the staff with his eyes; it lay there, abandoned, forgotten, the ghosts of his friends vaporing around it like hot steam out of a pot.

Noises from the crowd around him engulfed the blonde in an inferno of wailing cheers. His body felt completely still, drained; there didn't appear to be a muscle left in Roxas's body that _didn't_ hurt and every thought that stumbled into his head did so enshrouded in the thick miasma of apathy. Heaviness lodged in every cell of his being.  
_  
Why... why did I come to fight Seifer again? What was the use of fighting if I couldn't win? _were the first thoughts that trickled back into his mind and while he was laying there, and it would be impossible to tell how long he would have stayed on the ground if Seifer's hadn't snapped at him,

"Get up already, Roxas! I don't hit opponents writhing on the ground like little worms. Get to your feet like a man."

Roxas's body flinched as though it had been struck - he had never seen Seifer sound like that before. Eyes drawn into a suspicious frown, he searched Seifer's face for hints of mockery, but no matter how much he searched, they always managed to dodge his eyes.

"Isn't this exactly what you want?" Roxas whispered, fighting hard against the tears that were pricking the back of his eyes like the cruel little needles they were, "me, down? Me, _defeated_? Wasn't the purpose of this fight for you to see me like this?"

Anger on Seifer's face; the most pristine, most honest version of it. His eyebrows were drawn together, his jaws clenched so tightly it looked like it _hurt _and his eyes... yeah, his eyes...

_O_nly moments earlier, Roxas had thought he would drown in those sea-shore depths; he knew he no longer could. The very depths of those eyes had been set on fire, and the flames of anger entrapped in those glowing orbs were smoldering hotter than any hatred he could have seen there.

"Just pick up the goddamn staff get the fuck up, chicken-wuss!" Seifer commanded.

So he did. Roxas's legs were weak underneath him, threatening to let him go and send him crashing down into ground once more, but he managed to erect himself to his full yet still petite height. He raised his eyes to see himself being towered over by the other boy and his skin jumped into goosebumps as... he felt himself completely _consumed_ by the other boy. Seifer's aura was singing on his skin just in tune with his cologne mixed with the scent of masculine sweat dancing over his brain cells and Roxas, for a couple of heart-wrenching moments, was rendered unable to do anything other than stare into that face, to try to find the secrets hidden beneath that expression.

He bent down to pick up the staff and, for some reason Roxas would never quite grasp, he hesitated; instead of his fingers, it was eyes that travelled along the sides of the smooth wooden staff, took in every curve, every flaw, ever splinter and tried looking for its _real_ power that must have been floating all around the weapon like mystical flames.

And then, it happened.

Roxas didn't quite know how, or why and never would be able to. Hundreds of times he had asked himself this question and been denied answer from the depths of his working mind just as many; but this time, the secret unraveled itself in front of him like a birthday present being torn apart by a child, like what he imagined enlightement must feel like to people who used meditation as means to communicate with what they called God.

For some reason, he _knew_ and the knowledge, ignited somewhere deep inside his body surged up toward his throat where it finally split into the open.

"You see me as your equal," Roxas breathed, so quietly that if Seifer hadn't stood so close to him, would never have heard.

Dawns of the first hints of fear spilled all over Seifer's face - _fear_! On _**Seifer's**_ face! - followed by the first rays of rage. Roxas went on, his voice gaining strength with each word spoken, "that's why you approached me that day, all those years ago, and that's why you did it again just yesterday. You hand-picked me, Seifer. Why do you think you did that?" Roxas's eyes narrowed. "_I_ know why you did it now, Seifer. You thought I had -"

Seifer attacked him again and Roxas yelped as he dodged the blow, searching Seifer's face for a confirmation, a denial, but only finding bottomless anger there. It was the first time Roxas had ever seen the taller boy that angry and if he hadn't been pre-occupied with defending himself, it would have been cause for marvel; as it was, though, the sandy-haired boy found the mere act of ensuring his survival a delicate enough predicament as blow after blow cracked against his staff. Seifer's anger and heat was an almost palpable thing, tingling on Roxas's skin; beautiful and terrifying all at the same exquisite time and then, yes then... then the truth of what he had just said finally truly _sank in_.

Seifer had chosen him. Perhaps he had seen potential in him, perhaps he had always felt an inexplicable attraction; the real reason why he had approached him, though, had obviously been out of Seifer's conviction that, like a jigsaw puzzle, like two halves of soul, what they could join to make would far surpass the inherent power of either. Seifer believed that they were similar if only he could realized Roxas's potential.

_Another hit, a low groan from Seifer._

He _**knew **_it now.

_Roxas jumped as Seifer slashed at his legs._

There was no question that the reason why Seifer had hand-picked him that day, there was no question that he sought him out and only _**him**_. Sometimes, your rival could help you reach greater heights than your allies ever could.

_Seifer's tries to hit him kept getting messier and messier, his face documenting his loss of control._

And what that meant was that Roxas was stronger than he had ever thought he was, that he, himself, _bore the answer_. And suddenly, his muscles which just moments earlier had been begging for relief soothed as his entire body was fed by the strength that flooded him, that made his muscles sing with ability and his mind shudder in ecstasy as it built brick walls around himself. And then, Roxas, in one perfect moment that rolled every humiliation he'd ever felt at the hands of Seifer into one, he struck Seifer.

It had been the first time Roxas had ever struck Seifer with his - with _Hayner's_ - staff and words couldn't even scrape the surface of how _good _it felt to smack it right into the tall boy's stomach, to marvel at his face morphing into pain and to watch his broad shoulders heaving with his shaky breaths. Though inferior in terms of raw physical ability Roxas clearly was, it was with his new-found realization and the belief that it brought along with him that Roxas found it as easy as dancing to a well-remembered children's songs to dodge Seifer's increasingly desperate hits, to even land hits of his own, to shove his staff into Seifer's stomach, to slam it against the other boy's side.

If Roxas had been able to see his own face, he would have seen that of a boy he would have trouble recognizing. Joy was amusing itself on his face like light on still water. A tranquil smile was curling his lips. If Roxas had been able to see himself, he would have recognized much earlier than he did that he was enjoying this far more than had known he was capable of. Something in him was gnawing away even as he was carried away in his actions, something that was horrible and fascinating all at the same time. Was he...

(_just like Seifer_)

really this cruel? Was it really _him_ who enjoyed hitting the taller blonde?

Did he _want_ to be?

He knew the answer - somewhere inside him, at least - yet found himself unable to stop. Seifer gave a long, drawn-out groan as Roxas hit him into the stomach. His hands clutched at his abdomen just as Roxas, clasped by the fists of frenzy, struck again, against one of Seifer's long thighs, and the taller blonde gave a mumbled cry, the knee of the leg being whipped around, bending. Energy pulsed behind the smaller blonde's eyeballs as he kept striking the taller blonde until he had gone down, until he was on his knees; head down, panting, holding his stomach, one fine trail of blood flowing down from underneath his beanie and down his cheek, pearling on his jaw and -

Wait, _what? __**Blood? **_

The noise from the crowd around him was pressing down onto him from all sides in a dizzying crescendo, but the clarity that wafted through his head after taking sight of the blood was absolute. Roxas hadn't even remembered striking Seifer's head - he wouldn't actually _do_ such a thing, would he? _Would he?_ - but seeing the blood pearl on his opponent's jaw was enough for a sobering realization to pass along Roxas's nerve endings, like a pot of ice water had just been emptied over his head.

"Seifer? Are you okay?" he heard someone calling and it was only when he was already on his knees in front of the opponent he hated and loved and feared and wanted and shaking his shoulders that he realized it had been _him_ who had spoken. Seifer's eyes were flexed upon the ground as Roxas touched him, let his fingers trail over the crimson stream along the side of his face. It was sticky and slippery; yet, in a way that Roxas wasn't completely comfortable with, entirely intriguing.

Roxas hadn't forgotten about the battle, was still aware of the fact that they were in the middle of the most serious battle Roxas had ever had to face in his young teenage life, but right then and there he was overwhelmed by the gnawing sensations of worry and... guilt? Was it _guilt_?

"Seifer," the boy called again and he curled his fingers underneath the taller boy's chin and lifted it only to be presented by a grin so large and _evil _Roxas immediately knew that surrendering himself like this had been a grave mistake, and just at the same time as that realization pulsed into his mind, several things happened all at once.

Seifer jumped him, literally _jumped_ him, and at the sudden crush of their collision, Roxas lost balance, falling onto his back with enough force to knock the wind out of his chest, but before he could nurse his pains, before he could even so much as form a plan of action, Seifer was already upon him.

Breath was sweeping over his face; wet and fast and bringing the scent of cinnamon chewing gum right along with it. His lungs wheezed in protest as Seifer's chest pressed against his own and pain inhabited his legs as they entangled messily with Seifer's much longer ones. When Roxas opened his eyes, he found the other boy's green ones hovering only an inch or two above his own.

"Don't you know the first thing about fighting, Roxas? Never let your guard down. Don't feel pity for your opponents. He who pities, loses," Seifer whispered. Roxas could feel every word Seifer spoke on his skin, their lips only inches away, their breaths fusing together. In a way they were kissing already.

Blue eyes wide and raw. "I couldn't have won against you anyway."

A small, intimate smile. "No, you couldn't have."

"I thought I had figured it out. I thought you and I were the same."

Seifer grinned and the next words he spoke, Roxas would never forget. The next words provided him with the last piece of the puzzle, made everything fall into place, set everything into a perfect order. "That's not what you thought. You thought I saw you as my equal. Roxas, the meaning of an equal is not that he is the exact same as you; it merely means that you _compliment_ each other. You haven't fully realized your potential yet, but you're not me and you never _will_ be."

A beat.

"And I'm glad you aren't. I didn't choose you because you were like me or because I thought you could ever become like me. It was because I knew what you could become some day."

"What? What is it you see me becoming?" Roxas croaked, but he would not get an answer and it wasn't until much, much later that he would find it.

While the last words of what Seifer had said were reverberating inside Roxas's skull, Seifer pressed his lips firmly against Roxas's. Screams reached them as the audience gaped at the two kissing boys; the force of the crescendo engulfing them, but the shock that it carried with itself merely scattered to the ground around the two boys, unnoticed and unimportant. Doubtlessly, Roxas would come to regret this deeply - how _could_ he allow the school bully to kiss him in front of _everyone_? - but right then, the idea that this could be _wrong_ never so much as even scraped the surface of his consciousness. Nothing mattered to him but Seifer's taste, Seifer's aura, Seifer's tongue in his mouth, Seifer's hands buried in his shaggy hair.

Nothing mattered. Nothing but _them_.

The kiss was different from the very first they had shared; gentler, deeper, but every bit as passionate. They were moaning and writhing against each other and Seifer was pressing himself against the smaller boy's body like he had earlier that day during their - and _Roxas's_ - first kiss. It didn't take long for Roxas to reciprocate, for him to wrap his arms around the taller boy's neck and welcome the showers racing along his skin and down his spine. Roxas felt like he was drunk again, like he had been in the woods when Seifer had made him drink, only he knew this time it wasn't alcohol he was drunk on.

Afterwards, Roxas could not have said how long the kiss had lasted - a minute, two, perhaps five? - but in any case, it hadn't be very long before Seifer, with one long, wet gasp, broke the kiss. Seifer got to his feet in one jump and Roxas - cheeks flushed, lips wet and kiss-bruised, eyes watery and dim with lust and imagined drunkenness - gave an unhappy, impatient groan before he felt himself being pulled to his feet by Seifer's hand. A big question mark was drawn all over Roxas's face as he stood erected, but Seifer only turned to Vivi.

"The fight's over," he called. Then to the crowd, "nothing more to see, people. Thanks for watching." Then, he finally turned to Roxas, a glint in his eye that made Roxas shiver and send all the wrong messages to his groin. "And you, you're going home with me."

Roxas flushed. "What? But... didn't Vivi say something about giving up or death and -"

Seifer laughed. "_**I**_ made the rules. I can break them."

And then Roxas felt Seifer's hand on his wrist and an insistent tug and he let Seifer drag him past Vivi (who, if he was in any way surprised, didn't show it), into the crowd (people yelled and screamed in what all blurred inside Roxas's mind to meaningless clamor) and along streets (the air was harsh and cold, but the heat inside Roxas was enough to smother it all) and up stairs (Roxas's joints hurt from the battle, but it was a distant pain, as though already a memory) and up toward Seifer's house (grand and imposing, white walls bloated with the wealth inside) and into the house (Seifer held his mouth against his lips to keep Roxas quiet) and up stairs again (by now his joints didn't hurt so much) and into Seifer's room (_**oh my God**_).

Back before Seifer had approached Roxas for the second time, the smaller boy had sometimes wondered what the bully's room would look like. Would it be messy, like his explosive nature seemed to suggest? Or, would it stand in stark contrast to his nature, just like his fine, elegant handwriting did? But now that he was actually inside Seifer's room, he wasn't given any chance to pass more than one brief gaze over the room's contents (bed, one large desk, rows upon rows of books) before he felt arms closing around him, crushing him against that chest once more. Seifer's impossibly green eyes stared down at Roxas as he lifted him off the ground. Seifer scooted over the floor and threw Roxas onto the bed and then lunged right at him.

Roxas was too stunned to do much of anything as he lay there on Seifer's soft, soft bed, feeling the taller boy placing soft trickles of kisses on his chest and running his hands up and down the length of his upper body, caressing and feeling. Seifer was already writhing against him, moaning quietly and very obviously aroused before he raised his head and captured Roxas's lips into yet another kiss.

What had once been a fully functionable human brain had turned into little more than a puddle of mud and what had once been a body capable of self-control was writhing underneath Seifer's body like a cat in heat. Roxas tugged up Seifer's shirt to his underarms. When he ran his hands over Seifer's bare chest, he could feel soft skin, marred every now and then by skin tissue, and a heartbeat strong and feverish enough to shake the torso above him with its every pump. Roxas loved the sound and feel of Seifer's heartbeat, but he couldn't decide whether he loved that or the feeling of Seifer's tongue inside his mouth more.

Roxas moaned from out of deep of his throat and Seifer's kiss broke, the promises of their saliva still wet and heavy on their lips as he breathed, "shhh, Roxas, my parents are next door."

Roxas only laughed, running his fingers over the golden blonde strands of Seifer's hair, pushed the taller boy's mouth down toward him and welcomed his tongue into his mouth like that was already where it belonged. Seifer smirked against the kiss, amused at the smaller boy's eagerness and maybe, just maybe, also amused at his own growing tenderness.

Seifer's tongue pushed as deep inside as it would go and Roxas moaned, arching his back, wrapping his arms more and more tightly around the other boy's neck and pushing it down toward his mouth with growing passion. In time, Seifer's eagerness grew and Roxas's eyes blew open in shock as the blonde above him started rocking his lower body against the smaller boy's in long, drawn-out circles. Roxas could feel it. Oh by God, he _could_ - hot bolts of lust shivered through his body at the sensation of Seifer's erection pressing against his own through the fabric of their pants and at the exquisite sensation of having his cock grounded between the hardness of Seifer's body and the equal hardness of his pubic bone. Roxas's eyes rolled around in his head - _what was he to do? Seifer's parents... don't moan, __**don't moan **_- and when the need to make noise became too strong, he decided to moan right into the other boy's warm, wet mouth, for them both to swallow and muffle Roxas's sound.

While the sudden, violent kiss at school had been anything but, this make-out session on Seifer's bed was _far_ closer to how Roxas had imagined sexuality to be. Seifer's body on top of him, while eager and excited, was everything pleasant and right. If Roxas had been in any position to - or indeed, _been able to_ - have any rational thought, he may have wondered just when exactly the evil he had detected coming off of Seifer in rolls of doom had morphed into something that could feel _so good_.

Roxas's legs wrapped themselves around Seifer's body almost automatically as the longer boy shifted his position and the feeling Roxas was engrossed in was so mind-numbing - strong hands on his chest and both his cock and his tongue stimulated - that, at first, he didn't even feel the soft hand travelling down his body, over the sunken plane of his smooth stomach and down to his zipper and -

And then several things happened in quick succession. Seifer's fingered attempted to sneak into Roxas's white khakis and as soon as the realization of what was about to transpire hit the smaller boy, something quite peculiar happened. Doubt and fear stormed into Roxas's body and triggered the alarm in Roxas's head that caused the smaller boy to shoot up and grasp Seifer's hands and firmly say, _"stop."_

It took a while, during which Seifer kept clawing at Roxas's zipper while the smaller body tried to push his hands away, for the words to sink in. Seifer's eyes were that of a man whose mind was shrouded with lust and it was for the first time that Roxas noticed that the eyes of a person at the mercy of their arousal was little different from the eyes of those haunted by insanity. "Why stop?" Seifer moaned, disappointment evident in his voice. "You seemed to enjoy yourself quite a bit there." He sat up, looking down at Roxas almost accusingly and if Roxas had been in another mood, he may have burst into laughter at the sight of Seifer lingering one step away from curling his mouth into a _pout_.

Getting Seifer to stop undressing him had been the smaller boy's top priority, so once he had succeeded, he felt himself at a strange loss as to what to say to Seifer's question. Yes, why _had_ he stopped Seifer? He looked at Seifer, at his now messy hair of which strands of golden blonde hung down his smooth forehead and dipping into green pools. Roxas also allowed himself to briefly sweep his eyes over the other boy's naked upper body (some time during their make-out session Roxas must have undressed the taller boy) and was presented with the ridiculously sexy view of Seifer's chiselled, sun-kissed pectorals and dimly asking himself if he was fucking mad for having stopped such a gorgeous boy.

When he finally found his voice, he just muttered, "it just felt weird right now... I was..." he looked up, the lost look of a child on his pretty-boy features, "_scared_, I guess?"

Seifer ran his hand through his hair and made an annoyed face. "You didn't seem all that scared before when you were writhing underneath me, as hard and horny as a sailor on his first day back on land after a four-month service."

Roxas rolled his eyes. What had he been thinking? _Of course_ Seifer was an ass. "Way to ruin the moment, Almasy. You have a special gift for it, I must say."

Seifer snorted then, abruptly enough for Roxas to have to bite back a surprised little scream that would likely have come out embarrassingly girly. Then Seifer was upon him again, leering at Roxas. The smaller blonde's body went rigid at the sudden invasion and he was in the middle of mustering the strength to tell Seifer to back the fuck off when Seifer's voice interrupted him. "I see. You want to ask me for some time, don't you? How _cute_."

"Cute?" Roxas echoed, nose wrinkling. "Lay off it, Almasy. I'm not some _girl_."

"Then why won't you allow me to carry this to where it was naturally going to lead?" Seifer challenged and Roxas opened his mouth to give an answer, realized he had none, and snapped his mouth shut again.

Silent moments passed between the two boys, moments that were spent gazing into each other's eyes and curling their fingers around each other's - the gesture was so sweet and girlfriend-boyfrindy that Roxas would have never in a million years expected them to ever do it. Just a week ago he had regarded Seifer as being so rotten he would not have been surprised if the tall blonde had never once looked at a butterfly with any intention other than to rip off its wings. And now... _now_...

"I was scared just now," Roxas admitted. "I thought that.. if we were going to go _there_ we would go, you know, all the way... and that, I'm really not ready for. I mean, just yesterday I hated you and now you expect me to... you know." Roxas smiled. "I may be a slut, but I still have _some_ morals. Which is probably more than I can say for you."

Seifer smiled at him. "You liar."

Roxas raised both blonde eyebrows. "Huh?"

"I said you were lying. You never hated me. And, neither did I hate you. So _what's_ so immoral about this again?"

Roxas snorted. "Who knew you were such a horny little bitch."

"Says the body who just a second ago was sounding like he was cumming in his pants," and at that Seifer contorted his mask into a mockery of lust and aped, "_oh yes, Seifer, oh yeah, right there, ohhhhh _-"

Roxas slapped Seifer's shoulder, eyes wide and voice shrill, "I did _**not**_!"

The taller blonde boy smirked, revealing a row of straight white teeth. "Like hell you didn't. _"Ohhhh, yeah, oh my God, yeah, more -"_"

"Will you _stop_ it?" Roxas shrieked, pounding Seifer's naked shoulders. The clear sound of Seifer's laughter filled the bedroom as the taller boy threw his head back and ruffled Roxas's hair as though he was a puppy - a gesture at which Roxas grit his teeth and raised his first, ready to punch Seifer.

But he never got to punch Seifer that night. The taller blonde caught Roxas's fist, a smirk plastered all over his handsome looks. "Baby's got a temper."

Before Roxas could reply to that - _"I'm gonna show you baby, you jerk!"_ had seemed like such a good response in Roxas's head - Seifer had already pushed him down onto his back once more and was beside him, his chin propped on his palm as he regarded the smaller boy out of contemplative eyes, then sighed, rolled onto his back and folded his hands under his neck.

"All right, then. Then let's take rest, or something. You may be sore from the fight - no, _of course_ you'd be. Who were you up against?" Seifer chuckled to himself at his own words, then he closed his eyes and tension and lust and disappointment and everything that had been there seeped out of him, cleansing his face of their presence, leaving only tranquility behind.

The moments ticked past. Guilt demons were starting to gnaw away at Roxas's intestines (was Seifer mad? Had he broken an unwritten promise he had been unaware of? Was it simply bad etiquette?) as he regarded the other boy. For the first time in his life, Roxas saw Seifer in a state of utter peace - not a muscle was moving on the other boy's usually so expressive, animated face and with his long lashes stark against his skin and a manly smirk absent from his lips, Seifer looked a lot prettier, a lot more _vulnerable_ than he ever had before. Seifer, the evil ruler of town who ignited fear in the hearts of people with his battle cries howling over school yards, the very nightmare of Twilight Town's school kids who was feared by everybody and every_thing_ was gone, had vanished, had been swallowed up by the human being that had surfaced from out of the core of who Seifer was. And what a beautiful human being he was, at least on the surface.

Roxas let his own pair of eyes travel from Seifer's thin, pointed nose down along the lines of his jaw. It was proudly protruding against tanned skin blessed with a rich, golden undertone and Roxas lowered his gaze again, down to Seifer's narrow, pointed chin. The bully that had been twisting those features was gone, and the pretty boy in front of him had stepped forward to fill the void.

Wasn't it ironic then that exactly the moment that Seifer looked like the very image of peace and quiet, Roxas's own body was anything but? His heart wouldn't stop beating, his limbs wouldn't stop jerking from all the bent-up energy urging for release that had gathered inside them and - yes, and... his... intimate little brother down there didn't seem to have any intention to stop bothering him any time soon.

His cock kept demanding attention, would react to dismissal on Roxas's part with only louder and louder wails and more demanding tugs like a child craving for attention, like a real little sibling slapping with clumsy, pudgy hands. Roxas bit the inside of his mouth, trying to stifle his groans of frustration, but to his great dismay, one managed to sneak itself out of his mouth. Shocked, Roxas's head snapped over to Seifer - _oh my God, had he __**heard**__?_ - only to confirm his worst suspicions as he stared squarely into Seifer's eyes.

"Let me guess," Seifer sneered, "you're fucking horny and you don't know what to do about it."

Roxas's eyes widened. "No!"

Seifer rolled his eyes, then smirked again. "Yeah, right. Listen, if you're not a horny little virgin, _I'm_ a chastity-belt wielding monastery owner."

While that did shut Roxas up, it did nothing to extinguish the shame blasting through his body and rouging his cheeks that dreaded shade of girly pink.

The color of his cheeks was destined to become even redder as Seifer sat up, one suggestive smirk on his lips. "Well, you said you didn't want to go all the way, but if you want me to, I can... take care of your problem. And you of mine. And stop whenever you want me to, okay?" Then he thought for a moment, green eyes drawn to the ceiling and one finger poking his cheek. "Although, you better not fucking do it just as I'm about to shoot my load."

Roxas didn't even get the chance to reply before the taller boy was upon him again, laughing and nuzzling his hair. Those hands where hovering over his body once more, every bit as eager and demanding as before, but also just as good.

Feeling the busy hands on his body and an equally as busy tongue in his mouth, Roxas closed his eyes and let out one long, drawn-out sigh. The sigh of a man who had crossed the Sahara on foot and was finally greeted by a circle of belly-dancing beauties holding out water in beautiful cups at the end of it.

Whether they would end up doing this only once or whether their future would be dotted with it, whether they would end up as sworn enemies and rivals or as devoted lovers or both, Roxas didn't know and didn't care. He didn't know what him and Seifer would mean to each other next week, tomorrow, or even what they really meant to each other right then and there, yet didn't care. This moment would change his life forever, for better or for worse, and there was nothing left to do than sit back and watch where life would take him. This moment was the end of his story, the end of _every_ story and yet also, Roxas knew, the birth of another.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Whew, this chapter was both extremely hard and incredibly rewarding to write. Also, pretty damn long for my standards; in fact, this is the single longest chapters _I've ever written,_ just shy of 8,000 words in length. I'm a little proud of that, I have to admit.

If you liked this, even just a little bit, _please review_. :-)


	8. Long Live the King

**Aut****hor's Notes:** Seeing as how this is the final chapter of_ The End of Every Story_, I feel almost sad as I post this. Although I have at times neglected it terribly, this story has been with me for two years now and as such holds a special place in my heart. I just broke my personal record for longest chapter every written with chapter 7, and I'm breaking that record again with this chapter which stands proud at almost 10,000 words.

On another note, I have been **revising** the first 7 chapters, but you don't need to go back and re-read them. The plot has remained the same, I just sharpened my prose, corrected mistakes and added a few lines of dialogue here and there. One thing I did add though was several mentions of Roxas's adoptive mother Lulu.

I'm thankful for every comment, be it praise, concrit or even a flame, so please take that one minute to hit the **review button** and leave a short message. Reviews are the only payment us fan fiction authors are ever going to get, after all.

My sincere gratitude to everyone who has read to the end. May the Yaoi Muse be with you.

Till next time!

- Nea Vanille

--

_**The End of Every Story**_

_**Chapter 8: Long Live the King!**_

--

"_Seifer likes cheese."_

It was quite obvious: the way he scooped up the cheese on his plate, then twirled the cheese on his fork before he put it into his mouth. The very existence of Rai and Fuu, of even _Roxas_ who Seifer had been quite obviously excited over for the past couple of months seemed to escape the realm of his fickle consciousness whenever he was rolling creamy cheese on his tongue. A look of intense pleasure would be gracing his chiselled face and – with one long shiver racing down Roxas's spine – it was just _that_ look that would summon up memories of certain moments intimate enough for that dreaded shade of pink to kiss Roxas's cheeks. Roxas's freckles would stand out in between the rosy colour of his cheeks like pieces of fruit in a strawberry yoghurt and he'd swallow when his gaze fell upon Fuu, who would invariably be regarding him with one hard-edged smile scored across her face. She always raised one silver eyebrow at him as though she was _just_ as able as he to see the mental images his mind was conjuring up – a most unpleasant thought indeed.

"_Seifer is afraid of snakes."_

Seifer, afraid of anything? Asked two months prior, Roxas would have scarcely deemed it more likely than ever succeeding at tricking the sun into not rising. While he had known, in theory at least_,_ that Seifer was just a human and was doomed to come equipped with all the flaws any other human was susceptible to, it hadn't been until he had seen Seifer cringing at the sight of the harmless little garden snake they had spotted one lazy afternoon hanging out in Seifer's garden that the whole weight of the realization really _had_ sunken in. The night they had gotten... together – though Roxas usually preferred to call it_ the Night of the Fight, _which, due to the rhyme, Seifer seemed to think was risible – the tall blonde had still been personified enigma; the aura, the _fear_ not yet completely dispelled. Scary things that had no name had been clinging onto Seifer's skin, had been nudging themselves into his every crevice, hiding the human beneath. Now the veneer was spalling, little by little, exposing ever more of a very human Seifer Roxas would never in his wildest dreams have imagined existed. Ironically so much like the snakes he so feared, Seifer was writhing out of the skin Roxas had put him in.

"_Seifer's dream is to be a knight."_

Butterflies had been flitting through the summer air that afternoon, air that had been filled with the scent of lavender, grass and the heady, masculine scent emanating from Seifer's sun-kissed skin. They had talked about their childhoods, about dreams and laughters which were teasing the line to land of the forgotten a little more every year. Roxas hadn't been able to keep from laughing as Seifer had told him about his childhood dream to become a knight. "If it is your goal to protect the people, if I may say so, you're pretty much like the guy who wants to go to the hospital and ends up at the cemetery," Roxas had said, laughing carelessly like only a teenage boy could. He had bitten back the chuckles – well, at least, _tried to_ – when he had seen Seifer's muscles tensing and his lips setting into a hard line and Roxas had realized that Seifer, perhaps, had never given up on that dream.

"_Seifer genuinely does love his posse."_

Another hot summer day, another day of revelations so ground-breaking Roxas could scarcely wrap his mind around them. They had gone fishing with Fuu and Rai to a nearby pond and had turned the day into one full of laughter, adolescent banter, the mouth-watering promise of a delicious fish dinner and clumsy wet teenage kissing. Seifer's hands had roamed his body, Seifer's tongue had conquered his mouth in a way that by then had felt horribly natural, but it had been with a violent tear that the taller blonde's body had jerked away from him at the sound of the splash followed by that scream of Fuu's that had been ringing with panic. Seifer had darted to save Rai, diving head-first into the pond, re-emerging only seconds later with Rai's brawny arms spun around his neck. Rai's eyes had been wide open,whispering messages of unspoken love and gratitude, mirrored in the dark swirls of passion inside Seifer's eyes.

Roxas had been able to tell. He had known from a multitude of things: the worry on Seifer's face, how he wouldn't leave Rai's side for the rest of the day, from the stiffness in his spine, how an ocean of relief swamped his face when he had asserted that his friend had not been harmed, from the gentleness on his face that had softened it, that had made Seifer look so much younger than he was. Roxas had been able to tell that Seifer loved them dearly, loved them both, loved them like a best friend, loved them even like a brother.

"_And he's actually really good at teaching, too!"_

No place in Twilight Town was safe from being announced Seifer and Roxas's personal sparring ground. Many a pearly sweat drop had fallen onto Seifer's lawn, the school plaza, the street or the Sandlot in the heat of tightly locked battle. While it was about the raw unleashing of fury and the bitter need to win that came in conjunction with it some of the time, other times, these fights were conducted like training lessons for Roxas. The sandy-haired boy had picked up countless tricks from Seifer – the best grip on a weapon, how to do subtle psychological warfare, how to enhance one's speed and precision – and Roxas was proud of how his fighting skill had improved by heaps and bounds. Sometimes, the fights would be sweaty, sometimes brutal; always dream-like, always passionate. And afterwards, their pumped-up energy would unleash and weave together into a reality _just_ as passionate...

Roxas smiled, his vision taken up by vivid memory. It wasn't until a soft, yet urgent voice pierced the mental replica of Seifer's tongue in his belly button that his attentions swirled back to the brunette girl sitting opposite of him.

"That's all?" Olette urged, drumming her hands excitedly against the dull white surface of the cafeteria table. She leaned forward, green eyes glittering. "Tell me more about Seifer."

Roxas blinked, clearing his throat. "It's just all these little things I learned about him..." he trailed off, shrugging. "It's like, you know, I'm removing the layers... the layers of secrets, rumor, bad-mouthing... and there's an actual person underneath it all. Seifer, he...he keeps surprising me. It made me realize that, that... two months ago, I had no clue who he really was." He sighed, mentally adding, _although I was right, of course, at least in general.__Arrogant may not be __**all**__ he is, but__** of course**__ he's a cocky, overly confident son of a bitch at heart._

The day he had told Seifer he found it amazing how he was constantly finding out so many new things about him, Seifer had grinned toothily and said, "like retrieving treasures from a vault, one by one, isn't it just?" Roxas hadn't had the heart to say that sometimes, just _sometimes_, it was more like walking into one of those horrible bathrooms with gharish neon lights and discovering one zit, pimple and freckle after the other where you could have sworn there had been skin as smooth as a baby's ass a minute earlier.

Furthermore, he had also confirmed his dark suspicions that Seifer liked – yes, actually _liked_ – seeing people hurt. Oh, not hurting _Roxas_ any more, for the smaller boy knew that by now he had, for better or worse, won the taller boy's genuine affections; pretty much _everyone else_ though re-presented little more than toys to Seifer, and like any child, overgrown or not, Seifer had a penchant for ripping off his dolls' heads. He had realized that the evil, the vile part of Seifer existed may have been much, much smaller than Roxas had anticipated, but there was no changing the fact that it still _was_ a part that was _just_ as real and true as the part that made sacrifices for his friends and grew soft at the sight of puppies and traced Roxas's jaw line with butterfly kisses.

It took Roxas a while to realize that the last statement coming out of Olette's mouth had actually been directed at him. " - treats you well."

Roxas jerked up his face. "Sorry, what did you say?"

If Olette was annoyed at his lack of attention, she was courteous enough not to show it. "I said I was sorry for milking you for details like that – you see, me and Hayner," she shot one look at the blonde sitting next to her, "are just trying to make sure he treats you well."

Roxas grimaced. "You mean, like you were trying to make sure the first three thousand two hundred sixty-four times you asked me whether he was being good to me, while making little secret out of the fact that in your imagination he ties me up and makes me meow with a cat o' nine tails?"

"Roxas, I -"

"Look," Roxas interrupted, smiling in an effort to keep the atmosphere light. "I appreciate your concern, but our -" he paused, thinking if he should use the elusive word _relationship_, the decided against it, "-_situation_ isn't about him treating me whichever way he wants and me enduring it like his bitch." He tried to smil in an effort to soften the edge in his voice. "I can take care of myself – plus I'm sure Seifer is _way_ too scared of falling victim to the wrath of our overzealous mother hen to _ever_ even so much as get any funny ideas."

"I know you can take care. It's just still -"

_(wrong)_

"- strange."

"I know," he muttered. "It's weird to me, too."

Olette had taken it the best.

Of course she had questioned his sanity, of course it taken her a few days to come around. But when she finally had, Roxas had known why; she had realized she would have to live with the idea that the seeds had long been planted.

The seeds of Seifer and Roxas's entanglement; the seeds from which their relationship, for better or worse, would grow.

Olette had known. Two days after that fateful day, she had promised she would accept Roxas's choice no matter what it was. That of course they were still friends, that he was silly for even so much as thinking their friendship would ever end, that she, Pence and Hayner would be there for him. _Always and forever_, she had said, words that had caused a waltz of happiness to parade through his body and a weight equivalent to that of their entire school to be lifted from Roxas's slight shoulders.

Roxas knew it hadn't been a small feat for Olette to react the way she had – after all, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that what Roxas had done had effectively unleashed a tornado at the laws of the Universe as they had known it, and in the rare moments that Roxas got to sit down and get a moment for himself these days, the guilt would be quick and swift to sneak past his mental barriers and wreak its havoc.

Olette gave Roxas a small smile - the ugly uncertainty of which Roxas would have missed if only he had blinked at the right time – and said, "I would be lying if I said that any of us ever saw it coming, but.. you know, all things considered, it _does_ seem like you're very happy, Roxas with him, and of course I'm very glad to see that. And... Seifer has been behaving better since he has started datin-" she hesitated, "_spending_ more time with you." Olette didn't bother to mention that Seifer's sudden disinterest in indulging in his usual pastimes of bullying innocent school children into surrendering their souls and wallets could just as well be attributed to the fact that Roxas sucked up most of his time these days rather than to any inherent chance in his personality.

"So, it's pretty good after all," Olette reasoned, then elbowed the boy sitting next to her. "_Right_, Hayner?"

The boy shot her an annoyed glare, rubbing his ribs. "Sure. Whatever you say." He turned to Roxas, his lips curling into a smile. "Hey, Roxas," he turned his head, "Olette. Hey, I was just thinking while you two were arguing, that we haven't had a real get-together in a while." He paused, his eyes writing a poem only Roxas could read. "You two and Pence wanna come over to my house tonight?"

"Awesome!" Olette shrieked, slapping Hayner on the arm in girlish excitement. "It's been forever since we've been over. I've been wanting to come back – your mom makes the best pizza in town!" She turned to Roxas, hurling a massive smile right at him. "You coming?"

"I'd love to!" he exclaimed, smiling brightly. Then he remembered and he looked down, flexing his eyes upon the floor. "But, I kinda have plans already."

"Oh." Olette said. From the corner of his eye, Roxas could see Hayner's smile falling.

"But tomorrow would be fine!" Roxas hurriedly added.

Hayner thought, then smiled. "Sure." His voice was heavy in an attempt to lock away his heart behind the barrier of feigned insouciance.

Thick silence fell around their table like a lead curtain. Guilt demons were gnawing away at Roxas's intestines as he pretended to be very interested in mutilating his cafeteria food and he almost led out a sigh of relief when Olette, at last, shredded the curtain of silence to pieces.

"Why is Pence still not back?"

Hayner grinned without humor. "30 munny he's blackmailing the lunch lady into giving him a free re-filling."

Olette and Hayner launched into a conversation and Roxas took the opportunity to let his eyes slip over to the other end of the cafeteria, where the imposing silhouettes of Seifer, Fuu and Rai were cut sharply against the flood of the other students. They were talking animatedly among themselves. A small rush of endorphins whirled through Roxas's body at the memory of Seifer's strong hands in his hair, tugging at it border-line violently, of the heat on Seifer's skin swirling up to meet his lips... of what they had done that night, and so many times since, with their hands, their mouths...

He shouldn't have had to, but when Pence returned to their table, Roxas felt like he had been caught like the proverbial child with a hand in the cookie jar; he hastily snatched his gaze away, running one hand through his hair.

"Man, this school's going to fucking hell – now they're out of _desserts_!" Pence announced as he plopped down onto the chair to the smaller blonde's right and started to indiscriminately stuff the rest of his lunch into his already bulging cheeks.

"Since when has this school ever _not_ been going to hell?" Hayner retorted.

Olette giggled, opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off sharply as one tall, imposing figure stepped up next to her – towering over them all like the king Roxas had once thought he was, flanked, as always, by his most faithful minions. Roxas noticed with horror that he'd actually smelled his elusive cologne before he'd seen him.

"Since never," Seifer said to Pence, leering down at him. "People are born, people die, and then, then they go to heaven. Because hell? It's high school, kids."

Roxas bolted up from his seat. "How did _you_ get here so quick? I _just_ saw you over there!" he pointed to the now deserted table.

Seifer raised one eyebrow, grinning all over his face. "Been watching me, have you?"

Roxas's eyes widened. "No! Well, yes... but 'no' more than 'yes'!"

Seifer chuckled. "Don't be fooled, kids – he's a lot less innocent than he looks." He winked at Hayner, Pence and Olette, then turned to Roxas. "Well, let's go, then." Seifer slung one arm over Roxas's shoulder and started to tug him away, when he was stopped by one strong hand wrapping itself around Seifer's wrist.

"Where are you taking him?" Hayner demanded, eyes narrowed.

Seifer looked at him, a smirk on his face. Then, he turned to Roxas and sneered, "why, haven't you told your nannies that you're playing streetball with us today?"

"STREETBALL," Fuu agreed while Roxas elbowed Seifer and slipped out from under his arm. The albino girl's eye latched onto Roxas and he could practically _hear_ the caps in her droning voice. "TOO SMALL. SHRIMP."

"Hey, Fuu!" Rai objected, sending helpless looks into Olette's direction, "be nice to him, ya. Boss said he'd be one of us from now on, ya know!"

Fuu cut the air with her hand. "WALKING METER," was her final judgement.

"Fuu, we've had this discussion," Seifer said, amusement dripping from his voice like honey, "he may be short, but not _every_ part of him is small."

Pence choked on his lunch. Olette's eyes widened. Hayner coughed, red blasting into his cheeks.

Roxas slapped Seifer's shoulder, hard. "What...? Oh, you...!" He hurriedly turned to his friends, running a hand through his spiky hair and rattling, "I guess I should... get going. I did promise Seifer, Fuu and Rai I'd play streetball with them today..."

Seifer chuckled, once again curling his arm around Roxas's narrow shoulders, gently tugging him along. Blood was bubbling underneath Roxas's skin, thundering loud and clear in ears; it was just as the four teenagers had reached the door leading out of the cafeteria that Seifer turned around, blazing grin on his face. "And you three, get your mind out of the gutter – I was talking about his _hands."_

Roaring with laughter, Seifer led Roxas out of the room – going so quickly that Roxas almost tripped over his own feet and came dangerously close to leaning on Seifer like a fucking girl. He angrily swatted away the other boy's arm and they began walking toward the basketball court, Seifer and Roxas building the lead with the other two a few feet behind them.

Brooding quietly by Seifer's side, Roxas chewed his lower lip. Almost by default, his thoughts dug into his most recent memories, swirling back to Hayner and the last look of him he had caught before the cafeteria door had robbed Roxas of his vision.

It had come to nobody's surprise that Hayner had takenit_ –_ though Roxas didn't quite know what _it_ was -quite a lot harder than Olette had. Almost visible was his inner conflict, almost palpable his inner turmoil that cultivated into the benign neglect he was showing Roxas these days. Friends they still were – after all, if it hadn't been for Hayner and his love and support, the night of the fight could very well have ended with Roxas collecting his own brains splattered all over the battle ground rather than him spending the night huddled into Seifer's satin covers – but although Roxas's belief in Hayner's eternal love and friendship was unshakeable, the wedge between them had been hammered firmly into the ground.

They would tear it down, of that he was sure – just yesterday, after school, Hayner had approached Roxas and said, with eyes drained and rimmed with red, that all he needed was the same thing Roxas needed: the eternally soothing, cleansing hands of time.

Roxas had offered to break up with Seifer if that was what Hayner had wanted; to his great surprise, Hayner had declined._ "It is not my right or place, Roxas. This is about you. Don't. You're in too deep now anyway."_

He had been right, of course, but the hints of weariness around his eyes, the slight shaking of her lips, the tremor in his voice cracking underneath the cheerful top layer of her voice had been painful to Roxas; painful enough for little shurikens to wedge themselves into his heart and for the guilt demons to be invited to their equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner.

Roxas was pulled back into reality by Rai's voice sputtering,"I did all right in front of Olette there, didn't I?" He was practically jumping into Fuu's voice in search for approval. "I was good, wasn't I?"

"NEGATIVE," she judged.

"What?!" Rai's eyes were wide and child-like. "But, this time I even managed _not _to spill juice over her like I did last ti – hey, _watch it_!" he roared as a boy bumped into his shoulder.

Huge eyes belonging to a small-framed freshman were staring up at the brawny boy. "I'm – I'm sorry!" he whimpered, his eyes darting wildly between Fuu and Rai like a cornered rabbit.

The boy bowed quickly, then tried to circumvent Rai and make for an escape. When Rai grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back to where he had been standing, he let out one long, drawn-out yelp and would likely have fallen if it hadn't been for the tanned teen catching him by the upper arms and holding him away from his body like an old lady reading a newspaper.

"Nobody bumps into me, ya know?!" Rai sneered. A beat. "Well, since you did bump into me... obviously you _don't_ know! God, you're_**dumb**_!"

"S-sorry!" the boy gasped, looking like he was fully expecting to have his skull cracked open like a coconut on the cold, sterile floor of Twilight Town High any second now.

Fuu laughed; it sounded haughty and mean. Seifer just looked at the two of them, amusement sparkling in his eyes like the most cruel of gemstones. Roxas, who had until this point been a silent observer, took a step forward.

"Just let him go, Rai," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and collected and failing ruefully, "he's not worth it."

While Rai scowled, his victim's head snapped into Roxas's direction, wide and large and afraid, and when the blonde boy gave one tentative, crooked smile, the boy winced as though he had been beaten and Roxas realized he was afraid of _him._ Roxas opened his mouth to say something, to calm down the nearly hyperventilating boy, but was left in such awe scarcely a puff came out.

He was scared. Of _him_. Of him, Roxas.

_Nobody_ had been afraid of Roxas since he had run to hug to the neighbour's girl with his fly wide open – and that had been in grade school. The surprise was so complete that he saw himself left unable to do anything other than stare at the guy.

Jumping in his throat, running along his body, cowering in his eyes, the boy's fear was a wave of erratic negativity, enormous and tantamount and so oddly fascinating that if it hadn't been for Seifer, there was no way to tell how long Roxas would have stood there gaping at this boy.

"He's right, Rai," Seifer drawled. "He really isn't worth it. He's just a fool who couldn't manage to get out of the way in time."

Rai snapped his head around to glare at Seifer, but only for a second did Roxas see the hints of defiance before they slipped off of his face as quickly as a towel off of curves; his anger and emotions dissolved like fingers dampened in acid. Without warning, Rai let go off the boy's upper arms, not even sparing another look as the boy lost balance and landed in a heap on the floor with all the grace of an Orc in high heels.

Fuu and Seifer laughed in unison, their high laughter bellowing along the halls of school while Roxas watched the boy gather up his belongings and speed away, eyes glistening in traitorous wetness. One question pulsed dully behind Roxas's eyeballs: just when exactly his life had come to a screeching halt and he had embarked ona journey into this parallel Universe that only very vaguely resembled the world he had known.

But then, he knew that, didn't he?

It had started the day after the fight, of course. That day, school had been different. While Roxas had always been able to sense an air of fear and aggressiveness haunting the classrooms and hallways since the very first day at school, that day school had felt akin to a war zone; sharp glares had been missiles and whispered rumours bullets. They had torn through school with all the viciousness of a wildfire through a dry forest.

Suddenly, Roxas had been like the President; everybody had an opinion about him. People at school he had never seen before would randomly declare their love or look at him with a glare that suggested they would do nothing with more pleasure than castrate him with whatever utensil was within reach. Roxas still wasn't sure which of the two was creepier.

As much as he hated to admit it, though, Roxas guessed he really _should have_ expected as much - after all, all in the course of two days, he had gone from being a nobody to being Seifer's punching bag to being Seifer's... uh...

Well, whatever.

"Why did you let him go, boss?" Rai demanded, a welcome distraction that snapped Roxas out of his brooding. "It's been _ages _since I had a fight!"

"I'LL BEAT YOU UP!" Fuu offered with a glint in her eye. She sounded the most excited Roxas had ever heard her. "I HAVE A CHAKRAM. SLICE! SLICE!"

Ten seconds of silence as Rai, Roxas and Seifer all stared at the albino. Then Seifer turned to Roxas with a crooked grin. "Looks like the Deathship's got a new Captain."

"CAPTAIN," Fuu nodded happily. Then, almost as an afterthought, "SLICE!"

Seifer grinned. "Isn't she lovely?"

"LOVELY?" Fuu repeated, raising one silver eyebrow in an obvious sign that she didn't approve.

"Oh no, she's not only the captain of death_ship_, she's the Lordess of Destruct – owwwww," he howled as Fuu unceremoniously kicked his shin.

"IDIOT!" she said, emphasizing it with her hand. "There is no such word."

"I knew that!" Rai whined – yes, actually _whined_ – in reply, rubbing his shin like a child. "I was just, ya know -"

"And on that fascinating note," Seifer interrupted them, turning his back to his posse, and grabbing Roxas's hand, "let's go."

Roxas gasped, slapping Seifer's hand away. "What are you _doing_?"

Both Fuu and Rai chuckled to themselves while Seifer raised one eye brow and leaned down to bring his face closer to Roxas's. His pair of eyes danced closer to Roxas; the sea-tossed waves that would surely one day mean his demise. The next words coming out of Seifer's mouth, low and intimate in tone though they were, were powerful enough to momentarily suck all breath out of Roxas's lungs. "What, I can't even hold my own _boyfriend's _hand?"

Roxas's eyes widened. "What? _Boyfriend_?"

Chuckling, Seifer grabbed Roxas's hand once more and Roxas's fingers brushed against the warm metal of several silver rings as their fingers intertwined, as Roxas's child-like hands with the large palm and the short fingers melted into Seifer's long and slender ones.

The impulse to slap Seifer's hand away surged in Roxas like a violent tide, crashing against his wind pipe; for some reason, however, an exhilarating feeling he couldn't place swept up and froze his limbs, drowning out the inferior pulse of the tide.

Roxas blushed as Seifer tugged on his hand, flexing his eyes upon the floor as they started walking, with Fuu and Rai trailing behind them in silence. Seifer's hand was warm, calloused and large – he almost felt like he could feel Seifer's heart beat drumming underneath the thin skin of his palm, but then he wasn't sure if he only looking for feeble excuses to explain away his own heart which had long since launched into one excited gallop.

The absurdity of the situation wasn't lost on Roxas and he was reminded of his ongoing internal debate between treasures and zits as Seifer once again revealed a new side of him, one that Roxas sure would have been the cause of one massive fit of hysterical giggles if only he had been in the position to. Seifer Almasy _held hands_. _And had boyfriends. _Or thought he did, anyway...

Roxas, once he dared to raise his head, felt as embarrassed as if he was waltzing around school wearing a frilly pink skirt and the other student's unabashed glares only made Roxas want to look down and check he _really_ wasn't wearing a frilly pink skirt. If Roxas had been religious, it would have been quite likely he would have thanked his deity of choice for the fact that the basketball court was close to the cafeteria and their little detour through the Twilight Zone was mercifully ended when the three teenagers spilled into the open.

A group of students were already playing and once, a lifetime ago, Roxas would asked Seifer what they were going to do now – he no longer had to. Throughout the two months of spending more time with Seifer than was entirely healthy, Roxas had learned. It came to no surprise to the smaller blonde boy that the students – four tall juniors Roxas had seen in passing – looked up in dawning horror at the imposing figures of Seifer and his posse, exchanged hasty looks, then proceeded to empty the court. Just like that. Like there was an unwritten law that Seifer got to do what he wanted – and probably, Roxas reasoned, there _was_.

Seifer surprised everyone, though. "Hey," he called to them and Roxas blushed as the boys turned to look because Seifer was _still holding his hand_, "You're Branwel, right?"

The tallest nodded, stopping dead in his tracks and looking at Seifer with confusion written in a clear language all across his face.

Seifer grinned. "Play with us."

The four teens exchanged looks; hesitant with traces of fear lurking underneath, but when they turned back to Seifer and called affirmative, they were smiling, shaky around the edges though their smiles were. Seifer started to walk up to them, but Roxas stood rooted to his spot.

"Um, Seifer?" Roxas asked, looking up at the taller blonde.

"Yeah?

"You can let go off my hand now," Roxas snapped, snatching his hand out of Seifer's grasp. Then he smiled thinly and started walking toward the court, Seifer's amused chuckle drumming into his back and the monotone foot steps of Rai and Fuu following him. At last at the court and facing the four boys – all of which, Roxas noted with a bout of jealousy, at least half a head taller than himself – Seifer, to Roxas's horror, introduced him.

"Nice of you to play with us today," Seifer said, making it clear that they didn't have any choice anyway. He indicated his posse, "these are Rai and Fuu, as I'm sure you know." Then, he slung one arm around Roxas, causing the smaller boy to gasp and stumble over his feet. Ocean eyes wide, Roxas crashed against Seifer's chest where he commenced to squirm and try to worm his way out of the involuntary embrace.

"And this," Seifer said, smirking, "is my boyfriend, Roxas."

While the four boys weren't exactly unconcerned, their expression of mild surprise couldn't ever in a million years hope to match the horror on Roxas's face.

"What the hell?" Roxas exclaimed, struggling against the taller boy's chest and wishing that for once he had the shin-kicking skills of Fuu. When he finally succeeded to disentangle himself from the other boy, he stood there panting, shooting death glare out of eyes that were adorned by twitching eyebrows. "What _is_ it with you, today, anyway?" Roxas huffed. "Where is all this... this _boyfriend talk_ coming from all of a sudden?"

Roxas looked at the four juniors, then over to Rai and Fuu – all six of them were still as perfect statues, regarding the two boys in their midst. It would have all been all too fitting if, like in a movie, gusts of wind would have howled around their desolate forms.

Seifer chuckled, letting his eyes trail over Roxas's face; the quickening of Roxas's heart beat lay a cruel testament to the fact that the taller boy's eyes _still, _even after gazing into them daily for so long_, _hadn't lost any of the strange effect they had on Roxas. Although it seemed much, much longer to Roxas, it couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds before Seifer shrugged, turned to the boys and announced, "well, let's get this started." He turned to the boy and yet again surprised everyone, "let's split up, after all. The four of you play with Rai and Fuu on the right side of the court. We'll play 21, every player for himself. 2 points a basket and yes," he winked at Rai, "no blood, no foul. I'm going to have a little one-on-one encounter," Seifer chuckled at that, "with Roxas."

Seifer stalked away from Roxas without another word or look, and it was then that the meaning of Seifer's word really dawned on him. A burst of defiance spilled forth and the smaller boy's eyebrows laced together into one of the most venomous frowns recorded on the usually much more placid teen.

When Roxas reluctantly slipped into his usual warm-up routine, he watched the other six teens congregate on the right side of the court. While the four juniors seemed to be wavering between confusion and being scared out of their mortal minds, a dreamy look was splattered all over Rai's dark face; probably, Roxas assumed, making a mental laundry list of all the havoc he could subject the junior to. Fuu, meanwhile, seemed all lost in a world in which Roxas could wildly imagine chakrams and blood playing very prominent roles.

Seifer was waiting for him on the left side of the court and Roxas sighed, shaking his limbs after his stretching exercises and started walking toward the taller teen. He stopped in front of Seifer and looked up at him and Hyne knew Seifer should by now have been familiar, but that knowledge didn't stop Roxas's knees from weakening ever so slightly at the sight of those green eyes sparkling down at him in a merry dance.

Relief washed over Roxas as Seifer broke the eye contact, but was quickly followed by a harsh intake of breath as the basketball Seifer had picked up raced toward the smaller boy. He caught it without much difficulty however and he twirled it in his hands, a skeptical look on Roxas's face as he regarded Seifer.

"From the way you look at me," Seifer sneered, "something tells me that basketballs won't be the only balls that are going to get fondled on this court this pleasant afternoon."

Roxas rolled his eyes, the basketball shooting out from between his hands and crashing into Seifer's arms. "You wish."

"From the way you've been staring at me all day, _you_ wish."

It was almost like a ritual between them, one that had emerged over the course of the past couple of months and had settled so naturally into their daily lives that neither ever questioned it. The taunting was as necessary as it was empty and meaningless; the loving gazes that traced the lines of each other's faces was as clear a testament to that as any.

Pure affection it wasn't though; the pulse of competition was thrumming underneath those gazes hard and strong.

Seifer smirked as he turned his body to the basket and threw the ball toward the basket – the signal that the game had just begun.

The spell was broken. Roxas felt his own body lunging forward, his eyes transfixed on the ball flying through the air. Stretching out his arm, he jumped up as he saw the ball bouncing off the rim of the basket and flying toward him, but as only mere inches were separating Roxas from the surface of the ball, a weight connected with Roxas's side, reeling him off balance.

The smaller boy grunted softly as he landed on his feet, his eyes searching for the ball – and finding it shooting put of Seifer's hands and through the basket, whipping the net as it did so, then landing on the floor and shivering against it before it was picked up and cradled against Seifer's broad chest.

The combined force of Seifer's grin and the ball hit Roxas into the chest. "Your turn, chicken-wuss," Seifer cheered, snapping his body right back into position.

Two sandy-blonde eyebrows slid together on Roxas's forehead as he started to dribble the ball, rattling his brain for tricks to outmanoeuvre the taller boy, dribbling the ball around his legs, then sprinting toward the basket and -

- and the next thing he knew, the ball was still dribbling – but between the ground and _Seifer_'s hand, having snatched the ball away quicker than the smaller boy had expected. Roxas felt the irrational urge to smack that satisfied grin right off of the tanned blonde's face.

Eyes transfixed on the ball, Roxas lunged forward, trying to steal the ball back – but Seifer snatched it out of his reach just in time and held it above his head, causing Roxas to moan in frustration as the ball was held above his head in what was plain mockery.

Seifer laughed throatily. "Too bad you aren't taller, huh, why don't we -"

Roxas never got to hear Seifer's suggestion however as Roxas, with one shrewd grin, jumped up as high as he could, reaching the ball with his fingertips and stirring it up enough to cause it to fall off of the bully's open palm. It was with a triumphant grin sprawled all across the boy's youthful face that the Roxas lunged at the ball and snapped it away seconds before Seifer could reach it. Joyful laughter as clear as bells sped across the court as Roxas ran toward the basket, dribbling furiously.

The imposing frame of Seifer's jumped in front of him, blocking his vision and, with a curse, Roxas stopped, dribbling the ball behind his back. Dribbling being something Roxas had taken to like Pence to a candy store, what Roxas lacked in height he could sometimes manage to make up in dribbling skills. Since Seifer's intervention, there had been many, many things Roxas had realized he was quite good at and others, like dribbling, that he found he excelled at, that he would never have tried if it hadn't been for Seifer's steering him along – even though, in some cases, it had been with a little more than innocent insistence.

He spun around on his heel as Seifer lunged at him, dribbling the ball close to the floor to give Seifer no opening to get to it – Roxas gasped, however, as Seifer pressed his crotch against his backside in what Roxas was sure was not entirely motivated only by trying to get to the ball.

"What the fuck?" Roxas spat, his heart speeding up as he desperately tried to keep the ball out of the reach of Seifer's arms, now dribbling with both hands. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" the breathless voice of Seifer reached Roxas's ear; his body was now pressed flat against Roxas's back while his arms were snaking around Roxas's body. He could practically _hear_ the smirk on Seifer face as he said, "I'm taking a standard situation as a lame excuse to feel up my boyfriend."

Roxas groaned, taking a few steps forward with Seifer following suit, grinding his body against Roxas's while lashing out at the ball and very nearly reeling Roxas off balance with his vehemence. Roxas ducked, dribbling the ball between his legs as he spat, "You're really starting to freak me out with all this boyfriend talk."

Although Roxas couldn't see it with his ass pressed flush against Seifer's crotch, he could picture the amused expression on his face as his voice, which carried a challenging, seductive edge, reached his ears. "Well, _aren't_ you my boyfriend?" Roxas could hear the taller boy chuckling. "Because if you aren't, that means you're pretty much just a glorified fuck buddy." He paused. "You know, without the actual _fucking_."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "You're not going to stop bugging me about that_,_ huh?"

A grin. "Not until the day Jesus stops being holy, mate."

Roxas grinned. "I didn't know the Bible was going to be re-written," Roxas teased, "because I think you _are_ going to stop when I do _this_."

The smaller boy had been waiting for an opportunity for Seifer to let his guard down. Transferring the ball to only one hand, his elbow shot out with all his might, contacting with Seifer's stomach. Roxas quickly wriggled himself out of the taller boy's loose embrace. With barking laughter that made his ocean blue eyes glitter and sparkle like light amusing itself on the surface of sea water, Roxas raced raised on his tiptoes gracefully, held the ball above his head, and with what looked like little more than a brush of his fingertips, sent the ball sailing through the air.

Roxas's heart was thundering in his ears as he watched the ball shooting toward the basket, hitting the rim, trailing around it (_Go in, go in, __**go in**__!), _then stood still for a split second, then finally (_yes, yes, __**yes**_!) fell through the net.

Sweet, sweet triumphant bled into Roxas's veins, coursed through his body and sent every cell into jubilation. Turning to Seifer, he was greeted by a most venomous sneer. "That was a foul," Seifer mumbled and it took all of Roxas's might not to break into a fit of giggles at the sight of his mouth curling into a pout.

"You said it yourself: no blood, no foul." Roxas smiled. "Which in our case means: playing dirty is not only tolerated, but expected." His smile grew, and he added sweetly, "Doesn't it, Seifer?"

Seifer's pout dropped, replaced quickly by a grin – and if Roxas was hearing it correctly, that was pride lacing his voice as he said, "I see you've been paying attention." His grin grew. "You grow more wicked every day."

Roxas smirked, picking up the ball and shooting it into Seifer's arms. "Save your breath. It's your turn."

* * *

Seifer's hand and hot water, Roxas decided, were a most exquisite combination.

The massage Seifer was administering to his sore shoulder muscles melted into the steam like honey. Roxas hummed quietly to himself as he felt the wet, slippery hands of Seifer dropping from his shoulders to his back, making small circles that helped him relieve all the tension that had built up during their streetball match just minutes prior.

Steam encircled their bodies like mystical flames as they moved against each other. The air was filled with the sound of water drumming against the tiles of the locker room intermingling with that of heavy breathing. The room was empty, lost to anyone but the two boys and Roxas briefly wondered whether the room was sad that the two of them were so lost in only each other.

"Feels good," Roxas moaned, closing his eyes and letting his head drop back until it rested against Seifer's chest.

"I do what I can," Seifer snickered. "After I whooped the basketball court with your ass, I figured it wouldn't hurt to treat it well for a change. Wouldn't want it to break or anything..."

A lazy smile pulled up Roxas's lips. "You won by a 2 point margin. Hardly a ground-breaking victory now, was it?"

Seifer laughed and his voice was sincere when he said, "You're right – considering your height and the fact that you learned how to play streetball scarcely six weeks ago, you are pretty good." A pause. "But, of course, you'd never beat _me_!"

Roxas laughed, then turned around to look up at the taller boy. Seifer's hot, wet fingers, which had been kneading his back, glided along his body as he turned, coming to rest at the curve of his waist.

It was then that Seifer did something that, Roxas had noticed, he only ever did when they were alone: all malice melted from his face, with affection and beauty rushing in to fill the void; his muscles relaxed, ironing his face into that of an innocent, young, pretty boy. As soon as anyone – even Rai and Fuu - stepped in to disturb their peace, the mask would slip back into place and one could be forgiven for not believing such beauty had been there just a second ago.

"Fuu says we're cute," Seifer said, a crooked smile on his wet, glistening face.

Although the word cute was indeed one that came to mind looking at Seifer with his golden tresses sticking to his forehead and dipping into the green pools of his eyes, Roxas wasn't about to admit that without a fight.

"Us? Cute?" Roxas retorted, one eyebrow raised. "I would have thought Fuu's idea of cute ran more along the line of one-eyed kittens with a wooden legs, balancing cigars between their blood-dripping teeth."

Seifer laughed. "Nice imagery – you're wrong, though, about Fuu. Sometimes she's actually a lot more feminine than you'd think." He paused. "I mean, without the whole chakram slicing sadism...thing."

"Right," Roxas said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Except for _that_, she'd almost be as cuddly and pedestrian as you."

Seifer made a sound of mock-anger. "Me? But I'm e-bil!"

Roxas's smile fell a little. "I know."

Noting the smaller boy's change in mood, Seifer moved closer, pressing Roxas's body against his until their wet chests were fused together so tightly not even the trail of the shower could pass.

Roxas shook his head to get rid of all those bothersome thoughts and smiled up at his beautiful Seifer, knowing that the evil still existed, would always exist, but that he was beautiful just for him. He slung both arms around Seifer's neck, letting their bodies sway to the drum of the water on the floor, their bodies as smooth as baby seals, Seifer's eyes so large and green against his flushed skin. Emotions surged inside Roxas's throat, forced their way into its mouth and pummelling his lips in an effort to slip out; Roxas, though, kept his mouth shut, unwilling to release them into the world.

Seifer found a way to put it much less poetically. "Man, you look like a fucking constipated anthropoid. _Spill it_."

Roxas groaned. "Fuck, no. It's _cheesy_."

Seifer grinned. "I knew you would tell me you loved me soon."

"That was _not _what I was gonna say!" Roxas growled, "I was just going to..." he hesitated, "you know... thank you." Seifer opened his mouth to say something, but Roxas interrupted him, "I know what you're gonna say. "Thank me for what? For giving you two blow jobs in a row last week?" or something stupid and perverted like that." Seifer made a surprised face and Roxas rolled his eyes, letting his arms drop. "Oh God, you really _were_ gonna say that."

Seifer just shrugged, smiled, then bent down and kissed Roxas and dissolved Roxas's brain into little more than a gray puddle.

It was only when he was kissing Seifer that he remembered how he had actually been looking forward to feeling his tongue inside him again, how he had missed those busy hands running up and down his naked upper body. It hurt a little when Roxas's back connected with the slippery tiles of the locker room wall, but every pain was dulled and forgotten as Seifer's kisses became harder, more demanding.

But despite how great and _consuming_ it felt to have Seifer's need pulsing against him in more ways than one, no matter how nice it was to relish in the burning sensation gathering in his crotch, it didn't feel... _right_. He realized with a pang that made his eyes fly open and his hands to push off Seifer's body that there was simply no way around it - he _had_ to say it. It was burning in his chest, itching in his throat; it wouldn't let him enjoy what Seifer was doing to him.

"What?" Seifer groaned, looking dismayed. "I _told _you I was fine with not having real sex, I just want to -"

"It's not about that!" Roxas cast his eyes down, suddenly ashamed of his stark nakedness. "It's just... it's about before."

"Oh," Seifer said, his tone even, "you mean the blow job business."

Roxas smacked his shoulder. "I _told_ you it wasn't about that, goddammit!"

The taller boy laughed; it reverberated many times on the tiles of the shower room. In what was a delicate contrast to the steaming hot water cascading down both of their naked bodies, a cold shower slid down Roxas's back as Seifer's eyes levelled back on his. A smile was on his face – a nice, a _beautiful_ smile, the kind he'd shown him so long ago in the woods, moments before he had wedged that metaphorical knife deeply between his ribs. It was comical how Roxas's eyes widened at Seifer's words, how their meaning ripped right through his chest and dove into his heart.

"I know what you're gonna say, actually. You want to thank me, don't you?"

Roxas only nodded. He spoke, but it sounded hoarse, "For bringing me closer to finding out who I truly am – and who I _can_ be with some effort. I will never love anyone as much as my friends. Nobody will ever come close... but I have to admit that, two months ago, I.. I-" he paused, searching for words. "I... had stopped developing. Moving forward." He paused. "_Challenging_ myself, I suppose you could say."

Seifer nodded. "Most people never dare to step out of their comfort zone, yes." He grinned. "Yanked ya out of it, didn't I?"

He leaned down again, placing soft kisses on the nape of Roxas's neck then, trailing his lips lower still, he caught one of Roxas's rosy nipples between his lips. One glistening tongue darted out to dance around it, communicating a silent message; soft moans coming from the smaller boy's lips were a clear answer. The world around them ceased existing, colours draining like a washed-out painting, background noise quieting down until the pants and breaths were all they could hear. Gone was the harsh, gharish world of reality; arrived had the world in which only hot steam, water, eager lips, pink nipples and soft, wanton moans were real and -

and Roxas pushed Seifer away again, but before the taller blonde could stage his usual snort of protest, Roxas burst out, "so becoming your boyfriend, would that be moving forward, too?"

It wasn't very often that Seifer Almasy was at a loss for words, but right then and there he was as speechless as the smaller boy had ever seen him. When he did reply at the end of one long stretch of heavy silence, his words carried the defeated ring of truth. "It would be quite possibly the stupidest thing you could do."

"But.." Roxas sighed, big eyes huge, "it would be a challenge."

Seifer raised one eyebrow. "So is that a 'yes' then?"

Roxas cast his eyes down. "I suppose."

"You suppose or you _know_?"

"Fine, it's a yes."

Seifer's lips split into one wide grin. "So let me get this straight: you're only agreeing to officially date me because it's a _challenge,_ amirite?"

Roxas's eyebrows twitched. "What are you getting at, asshole? Be happy I'm agreeing to officially be your boyfriend, something, if you haven't noticed, will pretty much ruin every shred of reputation I've ever had and put me squarely into the ranks of darkness as far as most people are concerned!"

"Before you met me," Seifer asked, amusement dancing in his eyes, "you had a _reputation_?" Sharp. Efficient. Fuu wasn't the only one who knew how to slice.

Roxas's smile fell. "Forget it, then," he hissed and turned to leave, but knew he wouldn't get very far when he felt that by now so familiar vices gripping his wrist and yanking him around until he was face-to-face with that impossible pair of eyes for what was probably the hundred millionth time, yet always felt like the very first.

"Sorry," Seifer chuckled, obviously _not_ sorry, "You have to understand, you just presented me the perfect opportunity for a little jab."

"Sometimes I don't know why I haven't killed you yet."

Seifer laughed. "But Roxas, that's obvious. It's because you like me – which would also be why you want to be my boyfriend. And I think killing me would sort of intervene with that." A smirk. "Unless, of course, you were into _that_ kind of thing."

Roxas smacked him again. "You're crazy!" Then he moaned to himself. "_I_ must be crazy, too."

"The plight of the beautiful and powerful," Seifer cheered. Roxas wasn't prepared for another kiss, but he found himself opening his mouth and inviting Seifer's into his without a question or doubt when Seifer collected him in his arms yet again. Their bodies melted together, all hands and lips and sizzling energy once more, losing themselves into each other so much that if they had both started floating, they would scarcely have noticed.

Roxas had once, many years ago, played a computer game called _The Sims_. It had been Pence's game, really – Pence being the most nerdy out of their group, although Roxas had always come in as a close second – and Roxas had borrowed it for about a week before he had given it back, eyes red-rimmed and sleep-deprived, yet several experiences richer.

He hadn't really given it much thought since, but was suddenly reminded of the little mood bars in the game that had been in constant of being re-filled. Representing a human's basic needs, there had been bars for hunger, sleep and similar needs – and Roxas was feeling more like he had an additional bar as well. A Seifer bar.

"You were right," Roxas whispered, voice almost drowned out against noisy kisses.

"About what?" Seifer whispered back, low and intimate, tickling spots in Roxas he hadn't even known existed.

"You know." Roxas murmured, breaking the messy kisses and hiding his face against Seifer's shoulder, breathing in deeply, almost regretting that Seifer smelled of soap and not of spices and cologne like he usually did. "About before." He held his breath.

"You mean," came the quiet, soft voice from above, "about you liking me?"

His voice quivered, but not nearly as much as he had thought it would. "Yes. I don't love you, though," he added quietly. "Not... not yet, anyway."

And as Seifer laughed and squeezed him tightly and the happiness washed over his face like the gentle sea over sand, Roxas didn't even question his sanity any more, didn't even embark on a long torturous journey of asking himself whether deciding to make Seifer part of his life would turn out to be the greatest mistake of his life. He didn't ask, because he knew that it didn't matter, that no answer in the world had the power to change what was inevitable.

Roxas didn't know whether they would raise or fall, hurt or cheer, bleed or laugh, but he _did_ know one thing.

That they would do so together.

Then Seifer made a crude joke and Roxas rolled his eyes, mentally modifying that last sentence.

_...for a while, anyway._

**- The End**


End file.
